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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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BRANCH OP FRUIT OF MEECH'S TROLTFIC QUINCE, FROM A FrVE- 
YEAR-OI/D TREE. 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



AX ILLUSTRATED HAND-BOOK FOR THE PROPAGATION AND 
CULTIVATION OF THE QUINCE, WITH DESCRIPTIONS 
OF ITS VARIETIES, INSECT ENEMIES, DIS- 
EASES AND THEIR REMEDIES. 



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BY 



W. W. MEECH, A. M. 



SECRETARY OF THE TIN ELAND HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, AND HONORARY MEMBEB 
OP THE NEW JERSEY STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



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NEW YORK: 

ORANGE JUDD COMPANY, 

751 BROADWAY. 

18 8 8. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 18S8, by the 

ORANGE JUDD CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 






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TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Preface --■ 9 

Introduction 11 

Chapter I. 
History of the Quince 13 

Chapter II. 
Structure of Quince Trees _. 17 

Chapter III. 
Varieties of the Quince 20 

Chapter IV. 
Soils for the Quince ^8 

Chapter V. 
Manures for the Quince 36 

Chapter VI. 
Location— Trenching— Drainage— Cultivation 41 

Chapter VII. 
Laying out the Orchard 43 

Chapter VIII. 
Transplanting the Quince 47 

Chapter IX. 
When to Transplant— Keeping a Record— Effects of Winds 
—Straightening Trees 52 

Chapter X. 
Propagation of the Quince 54 

Chapter XI. 
Pruning the Quince 64 

(v) 



VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Chapter XII. 
Promoting Fruitf ulness without Pruning 74 

Chapter XIII. 
Flowers and Fruit 75 

Chapter XIV. 
Thinning the Fruit 77 

Chapter XV. 
Gathering and Marketing 78 

Chapter XVI. 
The Profits of Quince Culture 81 

Chapter XVII. 
Diseases of the Quince 82 

Chapter XVIII. 
Winter-Killing 95 

Chapter XIX. 
Insect Eneir ies of the Quince 97 

Chapter XX. 
Birds— Toads— Rabbits— Mice 133 

Chapter XXI. 
Medicinal and Economic Uses of the Quince 135 



INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Frontispiece, View in the Author's Orchard at Vineland, N. J. 



Figure Page 

1,2,3. Typical Forms of Angers 

Quince 22 

4,5. Typical Forms of Orange 

or Apple Quince 23 

6. Champion Quince 24 

7. Chinese Quince 24 

8. Fuller Quince 26 

9. Meech's Prolific Quince 28 

10. Missouri Mammoth Quince 30 

11. Pear Quince 31 

12. Portugal Quince 31 

13. Rea's Mammoth Quince ... 32 

14. Laying out in Squares 43 

Laying out in Quincunx..- 44 

Quincunx by Circles 44 

Fixed Marker 45 

Adjustable Marker 45 

Movable Triangle 45 

Locating Board 46 

21. Locating Board in Use 46 

22. Good Tree Digging 48 

23. Bad Tree Digging 48 

25. Heeling-in Trees 51 

Layering 55 

Mound or Stool Layering. . 57 

Large Cutting 58 

Root Grafting 58 

Root Cutting 59 

Splitting Knife and Chisel. 60 

Cleft Grafting 60 

Splice Grafting 60 

Saddle Grafting 61 

35, 36. SJde Grafting 61 

37, 38. Crown Grafting 62 

39, 40. Budding Knives 62 

41. Stick of Buds 63 

42. Cutting a Bud 63 

43. Training a Shoot from a Bud 63 

(VII) 



15 

16, 
17 
IS 
19 
20 



24, 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 
32. 
33. 
34. 



Figure 



Page 



44. Pruning Shears 65 

45. Buds and Branches 66 

46. Tree before Pruning 70 

47. Tree after Pruning 71 

48. Bad and Good Pruning 73 

49. Effects of Bad Pruning .... 72 

50. Injury from Bad Pruning.. 73 

51. Result of Good Pruning ... 73 

52. Ringing 75 

53. A Cheap Step-Ladder 79 

54. Stave Basket 79 

55. Fruit Crate 80 

56. Stem at a Bud as Affected 

by Raestilia aurantiaca... 

57. Stem between "Ruds Affected 

by Rsestilia aurantiaca... 

58. Fruit and Stem as Affected 

by Rsestilia aurantiaca... 

59. Spore of the Raestilia, Mag- 

nified 400 Diameters 89 

60. Allorhina nitida 89 

61 



SO 



87 



88 



Leaves Affected by Morth- 
iera Mespili 90 

Morthiera Mespili, Magni- 
fied 400 Diameters 91 

63. Mycelium of the Fungi 91 

64. Hendersonia Cydonia, Mag- 

nified 400 Diameters 91 

Leaves Affected by Hender- 
sonia Cydonia 92 

Leaf Blight 93 

Larva of the Borer 98 

Pupa of the Borer 98 

Beetle of the Borer... 98 

70. Woolly Aphis 100 

71. Cut- Worm, Moth 102 

73. Chrysalis of the Variegated 

Cut-Worm.... 103 



63 



65. 

66. 
67. 
68. 
69. 



VIII 



IXDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Fi.j 
73. 

74. 



76. 
77. 
78. 

79. 

80. 
81. 
82 

88. 



90. 
91. 
93. 

93. 
94. 
95. 

96. 

97. 



lire < Page 

Larva of the Variegated 

Cut-Worm ...103 

Eggs of the Variegated Cut- 
Worm 103 

Larva and Moth of the 
Dark-Sided Cut- Worm ... 103 

Agrotis Scandens 104 

W-Marked Cut-Worm 104 

Moth of W-Marked Cut- 
Worm .104 

Calosoma Scrutator 105 

Calosoma Calidum ..105 

Eggs of Haudmaid Moth ..106 
to 87. Larva of Haudmaid 

Moth 107 

Chrysalis of Handmaid 

Moth ..107 

Handmaid Moth 108 

Tachina Fly— A Parasite. ..108 
Fall Web- Worm, Larva... .109 
Chrysalis of Fall Web- 
Worm 109 

Moth of Fall Web-Worm ..109 
Bag-Worm— All Stages ....110 

Cryptus inquisitor 112 

Hemiteles thyridopteryx — 

Male 112 

Female 112 



Fig itre Page 

98. Corn Emperor Moth — 

Larva 112 

99. Female....' .113 

100. Male.... ..113 

101. White-Marked Tussock- 

Moth— Larva .115 

102. Pupa 115 

103. Male.... 115 

104. Pear-Tree Slug— Female ..117 

105. Larva 117 

106. Polyphemus Moth,Female-120 

107. Male ....120 

108. Chrysalis ....121 

109. Larva 121 

110. Cocoon 122 

111 . Long-tailed Ophion 123 

112. Cotton Tuft, Larva and 

Cocoon ..124 

113. The Green Aphis 125 

114. LeafCrampler 129 

115. Leaves Destroyed by 

Crumpler 129 

116. Tarnished Plant-Bug 130 

117. Pear-Tree Blister-Beetle ... 131 

118. Chrysomelians 131 

119. Quince Curculio 132 

120. 121, 122. Saving Girdled 

Trees 134 



P K E FA C E. 

To cultivate any fruit with the highest success there 
must be sufficient knowledge of what is involved to 
enable the cultivator to assign a reason for what he does 
both to the soil and to the tree. 

The object of this work is to furnish a manual or 
hand-book for the novice and those who are already more 
or less informed, and yet desire a work of reference to 
consult in the various operations necessary to attain the 
highest success in quince culture. 

Aware of the imperfections of everything human, the 
author does not expect that this attempt to furnish a 
collective exhibit of the points of greatest interest per- 
taining to this culture of a much-neglected fruit will be 
beyond criticism. The demand for a work on quince 
culture is urgent, and is shown by many letters of in- 
quiry from all parts of the country. Solicitations have 
been numerous, asking the author to write this book, 
and give the world the results of his experience. 

On consulting the large libraries of the great cities, 
and those in smaller cities and towns, no separate work 
was found on quince culture. Interesting articles are 
scattered through many volumes on agriculture, horti- 
culture, and gardening, showing marked improvement in 
the culture of nearly all fruits. There are works more 
or less pretentious on the culture of the apple, pear, 
peach, etc., but the various articles relating to the quince 
are dispersed through so many different books, that 
the labor of finding them, when the information they 
contain is wanted, is too great to be generally undertaken 
by even those having access to ample libraries. 

After deciding to prepare this manual, the author spent 
a vear re-examining all the points, as the seasons favored, 

(9) 



10 PREFACE. 

to be well satisfied in regard to all the insect enemies 
and diseases of the quince, and in reading whatever he 
could find upon any part of the subject. Besides the 
many points of interest in his own experience and obser- 
vation, he takes great pleasure in acknowledging his in- 
debtedness to the writings of Charles Downing, John 
Lindley, J. J. Thomas, A. S. Fuller, S. W. Cole, W. 
Sanders, P. B. Mead, and others in the department of 
propagation and culture. In studying the insect ene- 
mies of the quince, his own observations have been 
greatly aided by the works of Harris, Packard, Riley, 
and Saunders, on entomology. In observing the dis- 
eases to which the quince is subject, substantial help 
has been derived from Professor Arthur's researches on 
the blight, and the North American Fungi of Professor 
Ellis, who is unsurpassed in mycological research. 

In the hope that it may prove a serviceable help to all 
who shall consult its pages, it is respectfully submitted 
to the public by the author. 



INTRODUCTION. 

We live in a progressive age, when knowledge is 
greatly increased, and the mental horizon widened by 
the researches and observations of experimenters in hor- 
ticulture, as in every other pursuit. Improvement in 
quince culture has been remarkably slow, yet, on the 
whole, has certainly attained to an encouraging state of 
progress. The markets of the country are beginning to 
be fairly supplied with this fruit, where but a few years 
ao-o it was verv scarce. 

For both ornament and profit I know of no fruit that 
can be planted with better promise of success than the 
quince. In a city yard, or a village garden, there will be 
some spot for a tree or two ; and on a farm, large or 
small, the judicious planting of this fruit will be a most 
profitable investment. The method of culture here 
described has been attended with marked success. In 
practice, the difference between success and failure often 
depends on a little thing, very easily overlooked by the 
most skilful. But as a good general organizes a victory 
out of a defeat, so will a good culturist learn by his 
failures to succeed in further trials, as by them he gets 
back to first principles. 

Quince culture is both an art and a science. One 
great reason why the cultivation of the quince has been so 
much neglected is, that it was accepted as a foregone con- 
clusion that no success was to be expected in the place 
and with the facilities at command. But now, with the 
multiplication, improvement, and cultivation well under- 
stood, and reduced to some degree of exactness, it is as 
reasonable to expect success with this as with any other 
fruit. 

cm 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

It will be of great service to understand the prin- 
cipal laws governing the growth of plants, and the 
application of those laws to this fruit. The method 
of culture most in agreement with these laws will 
always give the greatest promise of success. As was 
said at a meeting of the Maryland Horticultural Soci- 
ety: " This fruit deserves systematic cultivation, in- 
stead of the careless system of a tree here and there in 
the corners of fences, and in wet places, untrimmed and 
choked by weeds." 

In 1872 the editor of the "Horticulturist" asked: 
"Why does not some one, of a careful turn of mind, 
forsaking the beaten path of fever for strawberries, cran- 
berries, pears, and peaches, study the characteristics of 
the quince, and learn its needs of soil and climate, and 
then follow them up by planting a good orchard ? " The 
author has done this, and here gives the results of his 
experience. 

The aim in this manual is to furnish all needed infor- 
mation for the profitable cultivation of quinces in all 
places where they will grow. Let this fruit, for which 
there is no substitute, be no longer only a luxury within 
the means of the rich, but become so common and abun- 
dant that it may be enjoyed by all. It will greatly 
increase the true wealth of the nation to provide all 
classes with all the varieties of fruits in their seasons, and 
so extend the means of health and happiness. 



QUINCE CULTURE 



CHAPTER I. 
HISTORY OF THE QUINCE. 

Cydonta, to which the Quince (C. vulgaris) belongs, is 
a genus of trees and shrubs of the natural order Rosacea, 
sub-order Pomew, and nearly allied to Pyrus, with which 
some botanists unite it; but it is distinguished from Pyrus 
by having many seeds in each cell, and by the abundance 
of mucilage in the seed cells. It is found all through 
Western Asia and Southern Europe, whence its cultiva- 
tion has been extended. 

The rabbinical traditions of the Jews make it the 
most ancient of all our fruits, dating back to the Garden 
of Eden ; and there, by its exquisite beauty and delight- 
ful fragrance, tempting Eve to commit her first disobedi- 
ence. In harmony with this tradition, is the fact that 
the quince grows in high perfection all through Palestine 
and the surrounding countries. This fruit at Hebron is 
so mild that many eat it out of hand, as we do apples 
and pears. Both Jews and Mohammedans make great 
use of it for various confections, preserving it in earthen 
vessels akin to the crocks in use among us. According 
to the '{ Horticulturist " for 1848-9, "The quince of Persia 
attains a weight of fifty to sixty ounces ; ripens on the 
tree or in the store, and can be eaten like a soft ripe pear." 

It was early cultivated among the Greeks, who called 
it the Eudonion Malon, the Cydonian Apple, and used 
(13) 



14 QUINCE CULTURE. 

it extensively as a preserve. Its botanical name, Cydo- 
nia, comes from Cydon, a city on the island of Crete, 
where it grew abundantly. They found it then, as now, 
"both toothsome and wholesome." A writer in the sev- 
enth volume of Putnam's Magazine tells how the ancients 
testified to their appreciation of this fruit by dedicating 
it to Venus. They regarded it as the emblem of both 
love and happiness. With it they decorated the temples 
of Cyprus and Paphos. It was the chosen ornament of 
the statues of Hymen. In the garden of the Tuilleries 
there is a figure of Hercules holding quinces in his hand. 
According to Plutarch, Solon enacted a law that this 
fruit should be the invariable feast of each newly- wedded 
pair before they retired to their nuptial couch. Homer, 
the Asiatic Greek and father of epic poetry, three thou- 
sand years ago described a garden in his Odyssey with 
such classic beauty, and sympathy with the real life of 
the people of that age, that we almost wish we had lived in 
his Smyrnian home to regale ourselves with the luscious 
quinces and other fruits there grown in their perfection. 

From the classic plains of Greece, where it may have 
formed the sacred shade of Academus, this golden fruit, 
in genial fellowship with literature and the arts, traveled 
into Italy, where Virgil, the prince of Latin poets, threw 
over its own inherent charms the rhythmic spell of his 
enchanting lays. One of the magic effusions of his genius 
appears in the beautiful lament of the shepherd Da- 
mon, in the VHIth Eclogue, where he honors the quince 
by placing it among the select exponents of a higher 
order of nature, hypothetically conceived to illustrate the 
irremediable determination of the lover's despair. 

The quince was, according to Goropius, the golden apple 
of the Hespcrides. Columella, the most elegant and ex- 
tensive agricultural and horticultural writer of his time, 
"who scattered incense upon the altar of its virtues," 
extolled it as the promoter of both health and pleasure. 



HISTORY OF THE QUINCE. 15 

The Elder Pliny, with the fond instinct of the true 
pomologist, eloquently descants upon its valuable prop- 
erties, and paints the tree as it appeared about Eome, 
with its branches depending to the ground, jeweled with 
starry fruit. In fact, ' ' the clever criticisms of this early 
naturalist soon became lost amid his enchanting pane- 
gyrics." Different varieties of the quince (more than we 
possess now), he tells us, were cultivated in profusion 
throughout Italy, "both for ornamental and useful in- 
tents." Like the orange and lemon in our Northern States, 
it appears sometimes to have been grown in boxes, which 
" were exposed for admiration in the ante-chambers of 
the great." He extolled most highly its health-imparting 
and medicinal virtues, enlivening his classic descriptions 
with a warmth of enthusiasm which "must inevitably 
fill the modern admirer of the quince with enduring 
delight." 

Professor Targioni, an Italian horticulturist, informs 
us, that at the present time the peasantry in some parts 
of Southern Europe highly prize the quince for perfuming 
their stores of linen, and that in the yet warmer lands it 
is still found as gratifying to the palate as to the nostrils. 
A recent traveler in Persia, after speaking of its use as 
a dessert, says it is yearly forwarded as presents to Bag- 
dad, where the highly perfumed odor is found so power- 
ful, that if there be but a single quince in a caravan, no 
one who accompanies it can remain unconscious of its 
presence. 

The Italian name of the quince, cotona or cotogna,is 
believed to be the origin of melocoton for a quince, as 
melocotognois the Italian for a quince tree. The Spanish 
melocoton is a peach tree grafted on the quince, or the 
fruit of this, but membrillo is the Spanish name of the 
quince, as malum cotoneum is the Latin for a quince- 
apple. The Portuguese name is marmelo, from which 
comes our marmalade, a most valuable form of pre- 



16 QUINCE CULTURE. 

serving the Portugal quince, one of the best quality. 
hi the south of France, on the border of Garonne, 
quinces arc extensively raised to make marmalade, 
which is called cotignac, from the Italian. The French 
name of the quince is coing or coignasier, a corner, and 
seems to have been applied from the old idea of planting 
this tree in a fence corner. The Dutch call the quince 
Kivepeer, and the Germans Quitte or Quittenbaum, and 
both cultivate it quite extensively. From Royle's Illus- 
trations of the Himalaya Mountains we learn that "The 
quince plants introduced from Cashmere do not differ 
from those already in India {Cydonia vulgaris). It is 
found, either in a wild or cultivated state, on the ramifi- 
cations of Taurus and Caucasils, Hindoo-Khoosh and the 
Himalayas, or in the valleys included within them." 
"They are abundant at Bokhara and other places in the 
north of Hindoo-Khoosh." 

It is now found growing spontaneously on the banks 
of the Danube and in Southern France. It is also exten- 
sively cultivated in various parts of the French Republic, 
especially at Angers, whence the stocks of young trees 
are sent abroad by the million. Early in the history of 
England we find accounts of its culture, where it was 
employed for hedges as well as for ornament and fruit. 
It seems to have traveled with the march of civilization, 
and been celebrated in song as in mythology. 

The Pilgrims early brought it to New England, where 
it was cultivated on the rugged hillsides and in the 
valleys ; and as they spread over the country in their 
migrations, they carried with them the older varieties 
of this fruit. The chief improvements in the varieties 
and modes of cultivation are the result of the last half 
century's experience ; and now, as we see all parts of the 
civilized world interested in this fruit, we hail with joy 
its progress and success. 



STRUCTURE OF THE QUINCE TREE. 17 

CHAPTER II. 
STRUCTURE OF THE QUINCE TREE. 

The root and top are the two principal parts of all 
trees. When raised from seed, a plant or tree has first 
of all a main or tap-root, which goes down into the 
ground, where it ramifies, and gives support and nour- 
ishment to the top. The point where the root and top 
meet is the collar of the tree. Trees grown from cut- 
tings do not have a tap-root like seedlings, but make up 
for it by the large number of laterals which they send out. 
The top, consisting of the trunk and branches, termi- 
nating in twigs with their leaves, is the counterpart to 
the root system. The quince, in these respects, differs 
in no way from other trees. The bark of one year old 
twigs and shoots is beautifully flecked with a thick dot- 
ting of light-colored spots, called lenticelles. They are 
corky formations, having just projection enough to give 
a slight roughness to the surface. 

The buds are of two sorts, leaf and fruit. The buds 
of the quince that produce fruit push out short growths 
from one to three inches long, on the ends of which are 
the blossoms and fruit. The leaf buds resemble them 
at first, but when expanded are destitute of the organs 
of the flowers and fruit. The quince makes its most 
vigorous buds on the sides of its shoots instead of the 
ends, and, when well cultivated, growth continues until 
the autumn frosts nip the terminal buds. A large num- 
ber of the buds are latent, and may remain dormant for 
years. They are Nature's reserve to grow when others 
are destroyed. When a vigorous shoot has been well cut 
back, buds often push on each side of the visible buds, 
giving three and sometimes more growths at one place. 
The latent buds are developed when large branches are 



18 QUINCE CULTURE. 

cut back or broken off by accident, or when even the 
whole head of the tree has been removed. In a very vig- 
orous tree it is quite common to have the buds push 
their threefold development simultaneously; the central 
growth bearing the blossom, and those on either side of 
it only making wood-growth. Occasionally two of the 
three bloom together. By observing the position of 
the buds along a branch, in going the length of five buds 
you can so prune as to give any desired direction to the 
new growth, and thus form a symmetrical tree. 

The leaves, with their stipules, form the foliage of the 
tree, and seem to serve much the same purpose for it that 
the lungs of animals do for them. Leaves not only give 
beauty to the tree, but are necessary to its existence. 
They are formed of a series of veins, between which is 
the cellular tissue or parenchyma, which consists of 
numerous cells of various forms, with air spaces between 
to increase the surface exposed to the air and sunlight. 
There are about 25,000 of these breathing pores in each 
leaf, through which moisture and air are received, and 
vapor and carbonic acid given off. By this process the 
sap in the leaves is thickened, and the material of woody 
fiber elaborated. The wood of trees is chiefly carbon, 
which the leaves have absorbed from the air. Their ni- 
trogen comes from the combined influence of the air, the 
sun's light and heat, the humus of the soil, and the action 
of potash. Analysis of the ashes shows that a very small 
part of the constituents come from the soil. The air 
is an abundant storehouse of exhaustless capacity, full 
of the materials of plant growth, to which each culti- 
vator possesses a key. Every man and air-breathing 
animal on earth is helping to keep this atmospheric 
storehouse filled with the material of plant growth 
by every breath exhaled ; and so all animated creation 
is at work for the tiller of the soil. Not only arc 
the leaves the laboratory of the growing wood, but 



STRUCTURE OF THE QUINCE TREE. 19 

also of the fruit. If we would have perfect fruit, we 
must have plenty of good healthy leaves to mature it. If 
diseases or insect enemies are allowed to deprive a tree of 
its leaves, the growth both of wood and fruit will suffer 
accordingly. 

The flower of the quince consists of a five-parted calyx, 
urn-shaped, of a green color ; a corolla of five pinkish 
colored petals, quite broad at the outer end, and five 
styles in the midst of many stamens that fructify the 
seeds. In exceptional cases there are six petals, and oc- 
casionally a semi-double blossom with ten. The seeds 
are in five large cells, in each of which are two rows 
of seeds, covered with a thick mucilage. The quince 
flowers in May, and sometimes a few flowers ap- 
pear in June. In exceptional seasons the quince, like 
other trees, will bloom in autumn. I had a young tree 
bloom full in the fall, that put out quite feebly the 
next spring, and died entirely the second year after. 

The fruit is either apple or pear shaped, and covered 
with a white down, that affords partial protection from 
insect enemies. If the quince is gathered before it is 
fully ripe it is very slow in coloring, and may never wear 
the rich golden yellow it would if left to mature as 
Nature intended. Though one of the hardest of all 
fruits, it is also one of the easiest bruised, and then most 
rapidly decays. Early ripening varieties are not as high 
flavored as the later, and much sooner decay. 

The life force or vital principle acts on the carbon, 
oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and mineral matters which 
are combined in the formation of the cellular structure 
of the tree in all its parts. The mystery of plant life is, 
that the germ in the seed has in it the organizing power 
that determines both the form and functions of the cells 
by which it builds up all its growth. Chemical analysis 
reveals the various elements and their proportions in the 
vegetable cell; but the utmost skill of the chemist, with 



20 QUINCE CULTURE. 

all his knowledge o" matter, has never enabled him to so 
combine these elements as to produce and build up living 
organic matter from what comes to him without life. 



CHAPTER III. 
VARIETIES OF THE QUINCE. 

There is a difference of opinion among horticulturists 
as to what constitutes a variety. Some classify all the 
varieties as being either apple or pear quinces, without 
regard to the other differences. Others class as varieties 
all that show distinctive differences in their habits of 
growth, time of ripening their fruit, shape, and quali- 
ties of color, fragrance, and flavor. To the latter class 
the writer allies himself, and will be governed in his de- 
scriptions accordingly. 

Traveling over this country from east to west or from 
north to south, we find a great number of seedling 
varieties that have no distinctive names, but are called 
by their possessors after the well-known varieties from 
which they are supposed to have sprung, or which they 
most closely resemble. On this point Charles A. Green, 
of the "Fruit Grower," has well said : "Almost every- 
thing in the shape of a quince that is not known to be 
Angers or Champion is called Orange quince. The race 
of Orange quinces has sprung from numerous seedlings, 
and there are numerous types of it all over the country 
that vary in shape, size, quality, and dates of ripening. 
I have given this matter the closest attention, and find 
in my travels that the Orange quince is divided into 
many strains coming from different sources. Quinces 
have sprung up in gardens, have been planted, propa- 
gated, and called Orange quince, for the reason that they 



VARIETIES OF THE QUINCE. 21 

resembled that quince more closely than any other vari- 
ety. In many cases these are not Orange quinces, but 
seedlings that vary considerably. I do not doubt but 
that Meech's Quince is one of these variations of the 
Orange quince, of an improved type." 

In harmony with this view of Mr. Green, I first called 
this variety the Pear-shaped Orange Quince, and only 
consented to change it to Meech's Prolific when my hor- 
ticultural friends showed that it needed a different name 
to avoid being confounded with some of the other pear- 
shaped varieties. I have seen samples of half a dozen 
seedlings grown in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, each 
of which was clearly distinct in tree or fruit, or both. 
A seedling tree in Philadelphia bears a very pretty quince 
having the marks of the old Orange quince. At Jen- 
kintown, Pennsylvania, is a seedling tree growing more 
upright than its parent, but the fruit very closely re- 
sembles it. In Bridgeton, New Jersey, is a seedling that 
produces a beautiful specimen of the obscure pyrif orm of 
mild acid quality. In Millville, New Jersey, is a seed- 
ling shaped like an apple, except that it is very deeply 
ribbed from the blossom to the stem all around. In 
Vineland there are two good seedlings of the apple and 
pear shapes, and each of them an improvement on its 
ancestry. So, no doubt, close observers will find it all 
over the country. The fruit books and catalogues offer 
but a very short list of varieties. I here give, in alpha- 
betical order, the varieties of most impqrtance, as now 
found in cultivation, with a few not very commonly found. 

1. Agger's Quince (Cydonia vulgaris).— This variety 
has a remarkably strong and vigorous root system, which 
has made it valuable as a stock for dwarfing the pear. 
The nurserymen of this country import large quantities 
of these stocks every year for this purpose ; and for the 
Champion quince, which succeeds better on them than 
on its own roots. 



as 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



In my experience the Angers has been very uncertain. 
Sometimes it is entirely barren, and then, again, bears 
abundantly. The fruit varies from the shape of the 
apple to the pear, having generally a modified form 




Fig. 2. 

ANGERS — THREE FORMS. 



Fig. 3. 



between them. Sometimes it attains to a weight of 
twenty ounces. The fruit ripens quite late in the fall, 
and will keep well in a common cellar, like apples. The 
flesh is a little coarser than that of the Orange. 

2. Apple or Okange Quince (Cyclonia vulgaris v. 
maliformis). This is generally known simply as the Orange 
quince. Some speak of the Apple quince as distinct from 
the Orange; but, as generally understood, they are one and 
the same variety. One old author speaks of the Orange 
and Angers as one and the same ; but he could hardly 
make a clearer mistake. The Orange variety is most 
cultivated in New York and New England, probably 
because of its early ripening. 

The old Orange quince tree is very readily distinguished 
by the trunk and larger limbs having very rough excres- 
cences all around them at very short intervals. The 
color of the leaves and of the bark on young twigs is 
perceptibly lighter than on the other varieties, includ- 



VARIETIES OF THE QUIKCE. 



23 



ing seedlings. The strains of the Orange quince that 
have evidently sprung from its seeds, will generally be 
found to have smoother trunks, with deeper color of 
leaves and of the bark on the twigs. The shape of the 
fruit in the old Orange quince is like a Rhode Island 
Greening apple or a Fallawater. It is often broad- 
ened toward the stem, and occasionally shapes up to 
the stem like a Seckel pear. In some of the newer 
strains the whole body of the fruit is more elongated. 
The color is a rich orange, which is often marred by 
red spots as the fruit matures ; and when fully ripe 




Fi2\ 4.— ORANGE, OLD TYPE. 




Fig. 5.— ORANGE, SEEDLING. 



these spots sink below the surface, and after a little 
while become centers of decay. This decay is frequently 
seen while the fruit is yet on the tree. The flesh is 
generally tender, and the flavor good, though not as 
high as in varieties that ripen later. This lack of high 
flavor is much more noticeable in New Jersey and fur- 
ther South, where it ripens about the middle of Sep- 
tember, when the weather is hot, than in New York and 
further North, where it ripens later, and cooler weather 
brings the fruit to a higher perfection. 

The time of ripening in all places will vary with the 
variations of the season. Trees in very full bearing will 



24 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



take longer to perfect the fruit. I have seen a difference 
of two weeks, which was clearly attributable to this cause. 
A fair weight for the Orange quince is about half a pound; 
but in favorable circumstances it will come up to a pound, 
and has reached twenty-two ounces. In many parts of 
the United States it has long been the most popular 
variety, though some of the seedlings which bear this 
name are inferior. 

3. The Champion Quince. — This variety is one of 
those but lately brought to public notice. It is described 




Fig. 6.— CHAMPION. 



Fig. 7.— CHINESE. 



as being " obscure pyriform, between the shape of an 
apple and a pear, with the stem inserted at the base of an 
unusually prominent lip, and inclined ; the skin a lively 
yellow, strongly russeted for a short distance around the 
stem ; calyx set in a remarkably deep and strongly corru- 
gated basin. " The tree is very vigorous, and comes early 
into bearing. The fruit is larger than the Orange. It 
ripens later than any other quince, and has been grown 
to weigh twenty-four ounces. 



VARIETIES OF THE QUINCE. 25 

It is especially difficult to j^ropagate from its own cut- 
tings. The growing shoots have a very dark color, which 
is peculiarly its own, and distinguishes it from others. 
It- is unusually subject to blight in some parts of the 
country. In some sections it grows vigorously and bears 
abundantly, while in others it is a very moderate grower, 
and bears accordingly. 

4. Chinese Quince (Cydonia Sinensis) is a variety 
cultivated for ornament. In the Southern States it is in 
favor for its fruit, which sometimes attains a weight of 
two and a half pounds. I have found the quality good 
for a preserve, though the grain is a little coarse. The 
tree grows to the hight of thirty feet or more. The fo- 
liage assumes a beautiful red tint in autumn. The 
flowers are rosy red, with a violet odor. It blooms in 
May. The fruit is very large, smooth, oblong-oval, and 
of a greenish yellow. The flesh is firm; and when pre- 
served, turns to a beautiful pink. It ripens late, and 
keeps a long time in sound condition. 

This quince was taken to Holland at the close of the 
last century, and to France in the beginning of this, 
and fruited in the Jardin du Eoi in 1811. It proved 
hardy in Paris, but the season was short for its fruit to 
ripen well. It succeeds in the West Indies, and in the 
United States south of Maryland. To swell some cata- 
logues the Chinese quince trees have been called Hong 
Kong and Lutea. 

5. De Bourgeaut is a late French sort, described as 
" Feathered trees," and in appearance looks quite differ- 
ent from any other variety. 

6. Fontenay or New Upright.— This derives its 
name from its upright form. It is slender and branching, 
and forms small, compact trees. The bark is very light 
green. Its cuttings root very readily. It is used for stocks. 

7. Fuller Quince. — This new variety was discovered 
about twenty years ago by A. S. Fuller, at Ridge wood, 



26 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



Bergen County, N. J., on the grounds of a neighbor, 
from whom he obtained cuttings and propagated a few 
trees. The original tree was broken down and corn- 




Fig. 8.— FULLEB. 

pletely destroyed by the workmen while building a new 
house, and but for the timely notice ®f Mr. Fuller would 
have been lost to the world. The beauty of the fruit, 



VARIETIES OF THE QUIKCE. 2? 

when it assumed a rich golden yellow early in the season, 
was what first arrested Mr. Fuller's attention. "It is 
large and uniformly pear-shaped, occasionally with a long 
slender neck, not larger than a man's thumb. Flesh 
fine-grained, with very little of the usual grittiness com- 
mon to the quince." Dr. Thurber adds to these points 
of Mr. Fuller's description, that the surface is somewhat 
ridged, that the calyx is set in a deep, wide basin, and 
that the flesh is remarkably tender and well-flavored. 
The specimen figured weighed nineteen ounces. 

8. The Japanese Quihce (Cydonia Japonica) is the 
well-known flowering quince of our gardens, and is con- 
spicuous in early spring for its brilliant flowers. It is a 
thorny, straggling, and bushy plant, sending up numerous 
suckers, which admirably adapt it for forming hedges, for 
which purpose it is often used. The fruit is generally 
elliptical, but often resembles a peach. The color is 
greenish yellow, often with blushing cheeks. The flesh 
is very hard and firm, but strongly aromatic. The jelly 
made from it is excellent. It will flavor two or three 
times its own bulk of other fruits. The scarlet flowers 
of the Japonica, as they open among the first blossoms 
of spring, are unsurpassed in their brilliancy and the 
charm they impart. 

9. Meech's Prolific Quince.— -This variety is the 
most uniformly prolific of all known varieties. So far 
as I have been able to trace its history, it originated in 
Connecticut over thirty years ago, and was slightly dis- 
tributed under the name of the Orange quince, or with- 
out any specific name. Some trees were taken to New 
York, Ohio, and New Jersey, but no general attention 
was attracted to its merits until the stock came into the 
hands of the author, who, after testing it beside other 
sorts, published in 1883 an article in the American 
Agriculturist, describing it under the name of the Pear- 
shaped Orange Quince. The article attracted the atten- 



28 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



tion of the' venerable Charles Downing, who wrote 
that he judged, from the description, it was a new va- 
riety, in which opinion lie was fully confirmed by a 
subsequent examination of the fruit. He expressed his 
belief not only that it was "an acquisition to the quince 




Fig. 9. — meech's prolific. 

family," but " w r orthy of general cultivation." So far as 
tested, it has justified his good opinion. 

The trees of this variety are exceedingly vigorous, 
fully equaling, if not exceeding, the Angers. The trunk 
is smooth, and entirely free from the excrescences of some 
other kinds. The bark of the young twigs is darker than 



VARIETIES OF THE QUINCE. 29 

that of the Orange, and is beautifully flecked with len- 
ticelles. The leaves are very broad in proportion to their 
length, and of a deep shade of green. The blossoms 
are very large. The buds have been substituted for 
those of the rose in floral designs with happy effect. It 
is not uncommon for one year old trees to blossom in the 
nursery rows, and occasionally bear fruit to ripeness. 
Such trees, after being transplanted, have uniformly 
borne every year after, so that I could show the horti- 
cultural wonder of fruit on every age from one to twelve 
years. 

The fruit is obscure pyriform, very large, of a bright 
golden yellow, exceedingly fragrant, and of high flavor. 
The skin is of a very fine texture. The cup of the stem 
end is very small, and often entirely wanting ; that of 
the blossom end is not as large as in most other varieties, 
and is less corrugated. The superiority of the fruit in 
crates or cans has been well proved by the highest prices 
in the home markets as well as in the large cities. 
The time of ripening, early in October, has been found to 
suit all classes by coming to the tradesman and consumer 
between the earliest and latest, when the season favors 
its highest perfection. It has weighed as high as eighteen 
ounces on full-bearing trees, though twelve to fifteen is 
a good size, giving seventeen fruits to the rounded peck. 

A Frenchman has this in his catalogue: " Meech's 
Prolific. — Eemarkable for its productiveness, uniformity 
in size, regularity in bearing, and superior quality. It 
meets every requirement of a perfect quince." 

10. Missouri Mammoth Quince. — This variety origi- 
nated in Massachusetts. It was carried to Ohio, and 
from there to Kansas City, Missouri, by J. M. Slocum, 
who sold the stock to S. C. Palmer, by whom it has been 
disseminated. After being tested some twelve or fifteen 
years, it was accepted with so much favor as to receive 
the commendation of the Missouri Valley Horticultural 



30 QUINCE CULTURE. 

Society, and from that Society received its name. The 
description of the tree is, that it is a healthy and vigor- 
ous grower, very productive, and a regular bearer ; that 
"when planted at one year old, and well handled, it 
will bear in five years," and "after it comes well into 



Fig. 10.— MISSOURI MAMMOTH. 

bearing the yield is from one to two bushels per tree." 
The fruit, which "ripens about the time of the Orange, 
is very large, pyriform in shape, and very rich and 
aromatic." The stem is set in a broad basin, and the 
cup of the blossom end is deeply corrugated. 

11. Musk or Pineapple Quince. — This is an old 



VARIETIES OF THE QUINCE. 



31 



variety, that produces a large fruit, but is now discarded. 
It had its celebrity in this country fifty years ago. The 
Musk was one of the sorts spoken of by Columella. 

12. Pear Quince (Cydonia vulgaris v. ollonga). — It 
receives its name from being shaped like a pear, oblong, 
and tapering to the stem. The fruit is yellow, the flesh 
a little darker than the Orange, and much tougher, be- 
coming woody around the core. It is of medium size, 
and though one of the oldest, is also one of the poorest 
varieties. It ripens much later than the Orange. Its 





Fig. 11.— PEAE. 



Fig. 12.— PORTUGAL. 



chief excellence is its high flavor. It is now little culti- 
vated, better sorts taking its place. 

13. The Portugal Quince (Cydonia vulgaris v. 
Lusitanica) is the earliest ripening of all the varieties, 
being ten days earlier than the Orange quince. It is 
not a vigorous grower, but has been used for stocks. The 
leaf is a little longer and wider in proportion than the 
Orange quince. The trunk and branches are peculiarly 
marked by excrescences as smooth as those on the old 
Orange are rough. The fruit is large, a little oblong, 
tapering from the middle each way, like a Kieffer pear. 



32 



QUINCE CULTURE. 




The quality is excellent. When cooked the flesh turns 
purple or crimson. The color of this variety' is a very 
bright yellow. The reason it is so little cultivated is 
that it is so shy a bearer. 

14. Rea's Seedling, or Rea's Mammoth, was raised 

by Joseph Rea, of Coxsac- 
kie, Greene County, N. Y. 
It is believed to be a seed- 
ling of the Orange, though 
in shape it is obscure pyri- 
form. It ripens later than 
the Orange, and keeps 
very well after ripening. 
The flavor is excellent. 
It has attained a weight 
of twenty-two ounces in 
New Jersey's sandy soil. 
To attain full size the tree 

But for the 

tenderness of the trees in some localities, this variety 
must have reached a much wider dissemination. 

15. The Sweet Quince. — This variety is so named 
because the fruit is mildly acid and not very astringent. 
The tree is a good grower and bears abundantly. T. B. 
Jenkins, of Ohambersburg, Penn., says this variety was 
raised from seed about 1830, and has been a regular 
bearer. The fruit is described as being medium to 
large, roundish oblate, and somewhat ribbed ; color yel- 
low, but not so bright as the Orange. The stem is set 
in a broad, dull brown, and rough, knob-like projection, 
while the calyx has large, long segments, set in a deep 
basin much corrugated. The flesh is firm and of a deep 
yellow, coarse grained, a little tough, and not very juicy. 



Fig. 13.— rea's. 



needs high culture with good thinning. 



SOILS FOR THE QUINCE. 33 

CHAPTER IV. 
SOILS FOR THE QUINCE. 

Theee is a diversity of opinion as to what kind of soil is 
best suited for the quince. One class of observers, who 
have seen this fruit growing in high perfection in the rich 
accumulations washed down from the hill-sides for ages, 
insist on a moist or alluvial soil. Others, with a suc- 
cessful experience in a light sandy loam, may favor that. 
Others still, observing that quinces grow successfully on 
all kinds of soil, except dry sand or wet swamps, would 
plant it anywhere, from the low lands along the sea-coast, 
or margins of lakes and ponds, streams and rivers, to the 
higher plains and table-lands, or on the hill-sides and 
hill-tops of quite elevated locations. 

This fruit has attained high perfection in the moun- 
tain regions of Georgia, and North and South Carolina. 
J. Van Buren, of Clarksville, Georgia, says : " It is not 
unusual to raise quinces five to five and a half inches in 
diameter, fair, smooth, and beautiful, and of high flavor." 

The quince adapts itself to different soils and circum- 
stances with remarkable success. The soil may have 
a preponderance of sand, gravel, or clay, and yet be rich 
in those fertilizing materials which adapt it to all wants. 
An analysis of the wood, bark, and fruit will show that 
the soil and atmosphere together have supplied it with 
potash and lime, soda and silica, alum and iron, mag- 
nesia and chlorine, phosphoric, sulphuric, and carbonic 
acids, and, moisture. To these add decaying animal and 
vegetable matter, with needed water, light, heat, elec- 
tricity, and the aerial gases, and we have the perfection 
of fertility. A heavy clay soil will be improved by the 
addition of sand or silica, because it will make it warmer, 
and more open and friable. A light, sandy soil, will be 



34 QUINCE CULTURE. 

made better by the addition of clay or alumina, because 
it will make it more compact and retentive of moisture. 
Lime and chalk will produce effects intermediate be- 
tween the silica and alumina. The mechanical condition 
will be found quite as important as the chemical constitu- 
tion of the soil. When the mineral elements of fertility 
near the surface become too much reduced or exhausted 
by long cultivation, it will be helpful to work the soil 
deeper, bringing up the reserve forces ; or by the addi- 
tion of a perfect fertilizer, the growth will go forward 
with success. 

In selecting soils, the first choice should be a strong 
loam, with enough sand in its composition to make 
it work easy. In a deep, strong soil the trees should 
not be expected to come into as early bearing as in 
the sandy soil, because the greater vigor of growth 
does not so soon tend to the formation of fruit buds ; 
but when they do bear they make up for any lost time 
by the abundance and quality of the fruit, and "greater 
longevity, and immunity from disease. A gravelly loam, 
if not too gravelly, is the second choice, because it comes 
the nearest to the first in all the more desirable qualities. 
A light, sandy soil is the next choice. It is a very de- 
sirable soil on many accounts ; and where it has a clayey 
subsoil, as in my Vin eland orchard, excellent results may 
be attained. It is not every one who can have his choice 
of soils, and it must suffice to use the very best available. 
After an experience of over twelve years with a light, 
sandy loam, I am well satisfied with its advantages. It 
is easily worked, yields excellent returns, and maintains 
a healthy growth. The clayey soil is chiefly objectionable 
on account of its being often too wet and heavy. Where 
the clay is not in excess, this soil is capable of being 
drained and otherwise improved, so as to give promise of 
good results. If only the proper cultivation be given, 
any soil that will yield good crops of corn and potatoes 



SOILS FOR THE QUINCE. 35 

may be used for the quince. This is especially true all 
along the sea-coast of the New England and the Middle 
States. 

In many sections of the country, soils of all these 
varieties will be found along the rivers. There will be, 
first, the alluvial of the river basin in a strip along the 
river bank, varying in width, and overflowed every year 
by freshets, which leave it more or less enriched by silt. 
Then, secondly, there will be the belt of sandy soil, 
usually a rich loam, suited for almost every kind of crop. 
Back of this, and rising on the hill-side, is the more 
sandy and gravelly land, of variable quality, and more 
affected by droughts. The middle belt is preferable for 
the quince, as, indeed, it is for most other crops. But 
on them all the quince will succeed by skilful manage- 
ment. 

The quality of the fruit on a wet soil is much more 
woody and astringent than on a rich and well-drained soil. 
A wet soil is always inimical to successful fruit culture. 
If for any cause it is desired to plant trees where a wet 
and heavy soil cannot be properly drained, the ground 
should be raised enough for the surplus water to pass off ; 
though it is doubtful whether any amount of drainage 
can make a spot so situated profitable for this purpose. 
Excessive moisture is as bad as want of water. 

A soil that is too dry will retain needed moisture in 
the heat of summer by being well cultivated. A hard 
and shallow soil, by being worked deep, and thoroughly 
mellowed, will resist drought successfully. But if the sub- 
soil be clayey we must not deepen so as to make the soil 
hold water like a basin. In deepening a clay soil very 
much we may necessitate drainage. Water-soaked roots 
are no better for the health of the tree than wet feet are 
for the health of man. 



36 QUINCE CULTURE. 

CHAPTER V. 
MANURES FOR THE QUINCE. 

Whatever can be used to increase the fertility of the 
soil by supplying plant food is a manure. The chemical 
analysis of any plant will show its constituents, and give 
the relative proportion of each, and so serve as a guide 
in supplying what that plant needs. About nine-tenths 
are water and air ; the rest is made up of earths and 
metals, as lime, clay, iron, magnesia, silex, potash, and 
soda, with gases and combustibles, as oxygen, hydrogen, 
nitrogen, chlorine, carbon, sulphur, and phosphorus. 
In the process of growth the plant selects such of these 
as its nature demands ; and when it dies and decays it 
restores to the earth these elements of fertility. 

Artificial fertilizers are made by mechanically com- 
bining in desired proportions the elements of plant food, 
to supply any deficiency of the soil under cultivation. 
The action of any manure depends on its soluble salts. 
"The salts contain the sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon, 
as sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, and carbonic acid, 
and the chlorine as muriatic acid." 

All animal and vegetable matters in the process of 
decomposition form ammonia. It is estimated that the 
annual rainfall on an acre brings to the soil enough 
ammonia and nitric acid from the air to equal one hun- 
dred pounds of guano. The soil, to get the full benefit 
of this atmospheric manure, must be kept porous to 
receive it, and well drained that it may not run off on its 
surface. When fire consumes vegetation, its gases return 
to the air, leaving as ashes the earthy matters drawn from 
the soil. In the process of decomposition the result is 
the same, only the combustion is slower. 

Wood ashes contain all the elements of plant food ex- 
cept nitrogen. Two and a half tons of seasoned hard 



MANURES FOR THE QUINCE. 37 

wood yield a bushel of ashes. In one hundred pounds 
of such ashes there are about sixteen pounds of potash, 
which is needful to good fruit. There are next three 
and a half pounds of soda, five and a quarter pounds of 
phosphoric acid, and sixty-seven pounds of lime and 
magnesia. A mixture of one part ashes with three parts 
of chip dirt is an excellent top dressing for the orchard. 
When the needed potash can not be had in wood ashes, 
a substitute may be made of the muriate or the sulphate 
of potash. Nitrate of soda and muriate of potash im- 
prove the quality of acid fruits. Lime is valuable in 
most soils by its solvent effects on the silica they con- 
tain. If lime be found in the ashes of a plant, it will be 
valuable as a fertilizer of that plant ; and such is the 
case with all hard wood trees like the quince. It also 
improves the fruit. 

Salt is so valuable to the quince, that it must be con- 
sidered indispensable to its highest success. I no longer 
think of raising quinces without salting every spring 
before the trees begin to grow. I have learned not only 
to salt my quince trees, but my pear trees as well. It 
does them good not only in promoting a healthy growth, 
but I think acts as a preventive of the blight, to which 
both are subject. It may do this by its chlorine or by 
its soda, or by both combined, through the spongioles of 
the roots effecting a change in the sap and the wood. 
We know not how, but have found the effect favorable. 
Besides these effects it also promotes fruitfulness. I sowed 
about three quarts (the quantity for a tree large enough 
to bear a bushel) around a barren tree early one spring, 
and the year after it bore well, and so continued from 
year to year. Quince trees along the sea-coast may be 
expected to do well. Trees at Newport, Rhode Island, 
that were set for screens in exposed places, yielded ex- 
cellent crops of very fine quinces. Salt acts as a solvent 
of other materials of fertility locked up in the soil. In 



38 QUINCE CULTURE. 

land fertilized a long time with superphosphates, there 
is an accumulation of fertilizing material that salt makes 
available. The lime and phosphoric acid lock up what 
the salt liberates. As good results were obtained with 
one quarter salt and three quarters phosphate, as from 
all phosphate without the salt. The salt and phosphate 
in equal parts produced a fine crop of corn on a mucky 
soil. Two hundred pounds of salt on three-fourths of 
an acre gave me the best crop of German millet I ever 
grew. It will be found valuable with quinces, pears, 
plums, peaches, and apples. 

Heavy soils will usually be found to contain enough 
potash, but in an insoluble condition. Ordinarily a 
good top dressing of salt will make this potash available 
to promote a fruitful condition. The German potash 
salt, kainit, and muriate of potash will be found service- 
able to most orchards. Nitrogenous manures stimulate 
the growth of leaves more than the fruit. The mineral 
manures, such as potash and salt, aid most in perfecting 
the fruit, especially the seeds, the thing of greatest effort 
in Nature's laboratory. 

The value of any fertilizer is determined by the amount 
of potash, phosphoric acid, and nitrogen it contains. 
Nitrogen is expensive as an ingredient in the commercial 
fertilizer, and if it can be obtained free from the air, it 
will be a very great saving to us. 

"The atmosphere is chiefly composed of oxygen and 
nitrogen ; and water, of oxygen and hydrogen ; and as 
there is always in the air more or less water, the element 
hydrogen is always present. Now under certain circum- 
stances, the nitrogen and hydrogen combine in the air and 
form ammonia. The oxygen and hydrogen in the air are 
supposed not to be united in a chemical combination, but 
to form merely a mixture. Hence this nitrogen is called 
the free nitrogen of the air, as distinguished from that in 
ammonia, which is not free," 



MANURES FOR THE QUINCE. 39 

Accepting the theory of the chemists, that " somehow 
or other plants take nitrogen from the air," it is probable 
that they take it in the form of ammonia, and not as 
free nitrogen. Bnt free or combined, it is evident from 
experience that most soils will be improved by the appli- 
cation of a quantity beyond all that is supplied from the 
air. The fact that the leaves of plants absorb gases should 
convince us that they may take nitrogen, either free or 
combined, though it does not combine very readily with 
other substances. Lawes and Gilbert, from experiments 
conducted under glass, concluded that plants could not 
take up the free nitrogen of the air. Professor Atwood, 
from experiments conducted in the open air, arrived at 
the opposite conclusion. 

The supply of phosphoric acid from ground bones is 
never out of place in the quince orchard ; and if the 
bones are first treated with sulphuric acid, their action 
will be more speedy. Bones in lye, or hard wood ashes 
kept wet for a very long time, will become useful without 
grinding, as they soften and crumble. 

The quince is a great feeder, and has the faculty of 
using all kinds of manures. When I plant trees I fill 
the large holes with rich earth. The chip dirt of the 
wood pile mixed with the top soil of the hole is good. 
The surface soil of the poultry-yard to the depth of two 
or three inches is excellent. Road wash from the gutters 
of the highway does well ; and better still are the glean- 
ings of the street gutters of the village. Trees well set in 
these rich earths grow well to a bearing age, when they 
should be annually supplied with plenty of good manure. 
Their annual growth is a safe guide to needed treatment. 
If the shoots grow less than a foot every year, they need 
feeding or pruning, and probably both. Manure may 
be applied to the trees by all the usual methods at 
any season of the year, but better in the fall and spring 
than late in summer. Old and feeble trees have been 



40 QUINCE CULTURE. 

rejuvenated by liberal manuring combined with judicious 
pruning. A feeble or a starved tree, if it bear at all, will 
only yield small fruit of indifferent quality. As much 
as ten bushels of salt may be sown on an acre if the soil 
is good; but a poor soil will not bear heavy salting with- 
out injury. 

Many will not be able to secure all the manure they 
need from common sources, and will of necessity have 
recourse to chemical fertilizers. To such I would recom- 
mend ammonia, about three per cent (the sulphate of 
ammonia may be bought, of twenty-five per cent purity); 
phosphoric acid, about ten per cent, equal to phosphate 
of lime twenty per cent ; potash, about twelve per cent, 
equal to sulphate of potash twenty-two per cent ; salt 
(chloride of sodium), about ten per cent, and lime five 
per cent, with about three per cent of magnesia. If 
they are not in the soil, add a little silica and iron. If 
the soil is heavy and clayey, the rest of the mixture may 
be sand or silica. If it is sandy, then muck will be found 
excellent. If the soil is in good proportions, these va- 
rious fertilizers may be applied without being mixed, in 
quantities according to the judgment of the horticul- 
turist. Full-bearing trees will be benefited by an in- 
crease in the amount of potash, as the fruit contains a 
much larger proportion of this than the wood. Decayed 
vegetable matter, or humus, in the soil acts as a solvent 
of all its mineral elements to make them available as 
plant food, especially the potash. Cotton-seed meal, with 
the addition of a little phosphoric acid and potash, is 
a good manure ; but the cost will be considerably re- 
duced by feeding the meal to cattle and using the 
manure. 



LOCATION, TRENCHING, ETC. 41 

CHAPTER VI. 
LOCATION— TRENCHING—DRAINAGE— CULTIVATION. 

Location. — The planter should select the best spot 
at his command. In deciding which is best, he will 
need to consider well the kinds of soil as well as their 
location, and secnre the greatest number of the conditions 
of success. If his valley is wet and subject to frost, he 
must go up on the hill-side, and, if need be, plant on the 
hill-top. 

As to aspects, any may be selected when the other 
conditions are equally favorable. A northern aspect is 
to be preferred, where the season is long enough to insure 
the ripening of the fruit, because it is safer from late 
spring frosts. In the Middle and Southern States this 
will generally be the case. A southwest exposure will 
have advantages at the North, because, when there is a 
frost, the morning sun will be more gradual in its effects. 
For a like reason, trees near a large body of water escape 
frost by its ameliorating influence ; and in case of frosts, 
the slight fogs that may rise soften the rays of the 
morning sun enough to prevent the injury of a sudden 
thaw. On the banks of a small stream in a deep ravine 
would be a bad location almost anywhere in the Northern 
States, because of the danger from frost. 

Tee^ching. — One of the objects of trenching is to 
improve a soil that is too sandy by the admixture of clay 
from a suitable subsoil beneath it. If the subsoil is not 
clayey, then the surface soil must be improved by clay 
top -dressings and the coarser manures. If farm-yard 
manure has been composted with peat, swamp muck, or 
river mud, it is all the better. The trenching may be 
done either by the spade or the plow. If done bv hand, 
go down twice the depth of the spade, and the work will 



42 QUINCE CULTURE. 

be efficient. If done with a plow, the furrow slice 
should be narrow, that the whole of the ground may be 
thoroughly pulverized very deep. Where we find a light 
sandy or mucky soil on a compact subsoil, it may be well 
to cross-plow, the more thoroughly to mingle the two 
together. 

Drainage. — Whenever it is found best to underdrain, 
the method should depend on facilities. Where there are 
plenty of cobblestones, it is a good plan to place them in a 
suitable ditch, and cover them so as to leave the surface 
much as it was before the drain was dug. This will be best 
in many parts of the country. In sections destitute of 
such material, tiles become a necessity. The ditch is better 
made between the rows of trees, so as to be reached only 
by the smaller roots ; and for the same reason it is well 
to cover the joints of the tile. Three feet may be deep 
enough; but always make sure that the fall to the outlet 
is sufficient to carry out the water. Land that needs 
draining at all is never likely to be made too dry by good 
underdrains between the rows of trees. Some prefer 
open drains to tile or cobblestone. If proper drainage 
has not been secured before the planting of the trees, it 
will pay to do it afterward. The drains, however, must 
always be so placed as to carry off the water. 

Cultivation. — The importance of thorough cultiva- 
tion for this fruit can not be too well understood. Clean 
culture is helpful in avoiding the borers, because it leaves 
no weeds and grass around the tree to make a shelter for 
them. If the ground is stirred often, besides keeping 
it free from weeds, it will absorb a much larger por- 
tion of nitrogen from the air, and so be enriched. The 
atmosphere presses it into the soil with a weight equal to 
a column of water thirty-three feet high; and if it is con- 
stantly kept pulverized its power of absorption is greatly 
increased, and it is much less affected by drought. 

The quantity of water evaporated from a soil well 



LAYING OUT THE ORCHAKD. 



43 



tilled is surprisingly less than from a like soil untilled. 
The experiments at the Massachusetts Agricultural Col- 
lege, with a light sandy soil stirred four inches deep, 
showed an evaporation of 542 barrels of water in seven 
days from an acre, while a like soil undisturbed evapo- 
rated 1,276 barrels a week ; a saving of nearly 105 barrels 
a day. A heavy clay soil cultivated four inches deep 
evaporated 904 barrels an acre, while 1,020 barrels were 
lost from a similar acre undisturbed during the week ; a 
saving of about 17 barrels a day by cultivation. Similar 
experiments in New York at the Experiment Station 
showed similar results. The crops that have been pro- 
duced on a poor soil by most thoroughly working it are 
a demonstration of its great value to all crops. It may 
be well to stir the surface every week of the growing 
season. 



CHAPTER VII. 



LAYING OUT THE ORCHARD. 



It is desirable to have the trees of an orchard in 
straight rows, not only for beauty, but for convenience 




Kg. 14.— LAYING OUT IN SQUARES. 

in cultivation. If the rows are begun crooked, the diffi- 
culty will increase as the planting progresses ; but if the 



44 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



first row is Straight, and the distance from tree to tree 
equal, tli3 added rows are easily made to correspond. 

The two methods of laying out an orchard are in 
squares, and in triangles and hexagons, commonly called 




Fig. 15.— LAYING OUT IN QUINCUNX. 

quincunx. Most orchards are laid out in squares, but 
in equilateral triangles the ground will hold about one- 
seventh more trees at the same distance apart. There is 
no way to set as many equidistant trees on an acre as in 
equilateral triangles. To lay out the ground in squares, 
the first thing is to form a right angle, which will be in- 
cluded between two lines six and eight feet long, con- 




Fig. 16.— QUINCUNX BY CIRCLES. 

nected by a third line ten feet long, as shown in the figure. 
Having formed this right angle, the extension of the six 
and eight feet lines will show where the rows of trees 
are to be planted at any desired distance. Parallel lines 
will show where to plant the successive rows till the 



LAYING OUT THE ORCHARD. 



45 



whole plot is planted. A ten-foot pole may be used in- 
stead of a line or cord to lay out the angle. If exact 
measurements are made there will be little need of 
sighting the rows. 

The quincunx plan is simply to lay out the orchard in 
equilateral triangles. Whatever distance be decided on 





Yig, 17.— FIXED MARKER. Fig. 18.— ADJUSTABLE MARKER. 

between the trees will be the length of the radius of a 
circle, which can be easily swept with a cord of that 
length, or by a marker for this purpose. The fixed mark- 
er is made by nailing two light strips to stakes the width 
apart for the distance from tree to tree. The adjustable 
marker has one of the stakes 
movable on a bar, and fast- 
ened with a key at any de- 
sired distance. 

I have found no way so 
convenient as to make a tri- 
angle of narrow boards the 
desired length, nailed at the 
ends, and with braces from 
each point to the middle of 
the opposite side, fastening 
well at the intersections. Having a base line, I move 
this triangle along from one tree to another, making 
holes and setting trees at the points. Repeat the oper- 
ation for each row till the trees are all planted. 

Besides the gain of about one row in seven over squares, 




Fig. 19. — MOVABLE TRIANGLE. 



4G 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



the quincunx plan allows of cultivation all ways, which 
keeps the ground in fine condition with the least labor. 
Laid out in squares fifteen feet apart, an acre will take 




Fig. 20.— LOCATING BOARD. 

two hundred trees ; in quincunx, at the same distance, it 
will take two hundred and twenty-two trees. At twelve 
feet in squares it will take three hundred and two, and 




Fig. 21.— LOCATING BOARD IN USE. 

in quincunx three hundred and seventy. At ten feet in 
squares it will take four hundred and thirty-five, and in 
quincunx four hundred and ninety- seven trees for an acre. 



TRANSPLANTING THE QUINCE. 47 

After the peg is placed for the location of the tree, it 
will be found convenient, when the triangle is not used, 
to have a board seven or eight feet long with a notch on 
one side in the middle and a hole at each end equidistant 
from the notch. Place the board so that the notch will 
receive the peg, and stick a pin through each hole. Lift 
the board, leaving the pins, and dig the hole for the 
tree. Eeplace the board on the pins, and set the tree in 
the notch, and it will be sure to stand where the marking 
peg was driven. With pins enough to do this, the entire 
orchard may be laid out before a tree is set. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
TRANSPLANTING THE QUINCE. 

No part of culture is more important than transplant- 
ing, and, as generally practised, none is done so badly, or 
with less regard to the principles involved. The digging 
often robs the tree of nearly all its fibrous roots, and the 
planting crowds what few are left into the smallest hole 
that will hold them ; so that, between the careless digger, 
and the thoughtless planter, the tree dies ; or, if it lives, 
makes a feeble growth, and never affords satisfaction to 
any one. 

How and when to transplant are the two chief points 
on which depend success or failure. In taking up a tree 
great care is necessary to preserve all its roots, large and 
small. If every root and rootlet could be preserved in- 
tact, and then well placed in the new location, there would 
be but little check to its growth. The nearer we come 
to this the better the prospect of success. The length 
of the roots being reckoned equal to the hight of the 
tree, we can tell about how far from the base of the tree 



48 



QUIXCE CULTURE. 



we should begin to dig to get under the outer portion of 
its roots. What is commonly called a forked spade is 
the best implement I have used, as it does not cut the 
roots, and bruises them but little. The digger should 
stand with his side toward the tree, and this fork will 
then go down so as to lift the roots entire, by work- 
ing from the outer ends to the tree. The larger share 
of fibrous roots will be found comparatively near the 
surface. 
As soon as the tree is dug, earth must be thrown over 




Fig. 22. 

GOOD AND BAD DIGGING. 



Fig. 23. 



its roots to keep them from drying by sun or wind. A 
cloudy day is desirable, and is all the better if damp and 
without wind. 

If the tree has been raised from seed it will have a tap- 
root ; but if from a cutting there will be only laterals to 
care for. If any roots are bruised or broken in digging, 
it will be well to pare off the bruised parts smoothly, and 
cut the ends of broken roots with a slant upward, so 
that the callus formed will emit roots downward from 
these cut ends. 

The hole for the tree should be about two spades deep, 



TRANSPLANTING THE QUINCE. 49 

and wider than the roots are long. In most soils it pays 
to dig a hole from fonr to six feet across to plant a one 
year old tree, and still wider for older trees. Throw out 
the subsoil by itself, and either spread it around on the 
surface, to be acted on by sun, rain, and frost, or to be re- 
moved for other uses. The top soil is then filled into the 
bottom of the hole, and the tree set on this so as to be a 
little deeper than it was before. Fill in among the roots 
with rich soil rather than manure ; for though it may be 
well rotted, it will be generally too dry, and if fresh will 
injure by the fungi it produces. Eich manuring on the 
top of the ground after the tree is planted will promote 
a vigorous growth. When the hole is nearly filled, a 
very liberal mulch of leaves, straw, or any such material 
should be well spread in, and covered up with earth. It 
will prevent the tree from suffering in drought, promote 
the absorption of nitrogen from the air, and by rotting 
become a good fertilizer. If the tree has large roots, 
great care is needed to insure them against hollows that 
produce decay. A little water may be needed to make 
sure that the earth presses against every parfc. After 
the operation is well performed, watering on the surface 
will not be needed, as the mulch prevents evaporation. 
If so watered at transplanting as to get the earth well 
pressed against the roots, and then properly mulched, 
trees will never need watering again, except by natural 
rains. 

How much room to give the quince depends on cir- 
cumstances and surroundings, and the form of head de- 
sired. Such writers as Cole, Thomas, and Downing rec- 
ommend six, eight, ten, and twelve feet apart. I have 
tried them all, and decided on fifteen feet as being close 
enough for the highest success. By stu dying the possi- 
bilities of this fruit, we must decide how wide we will 
plant. Sometimes a quince tree exceeds all expectation. 
In 1857 there was a quince tree near Geneva, New York, 



50 ■ QUINCE CULTURE. 

that was thirty feet high, with a trunk six feet around, 
and had branches extending over a circle seventy-iivc 
feet in circumference. It was thought to be the largest 
quince tree on record. I have read of a tree on a thorn 
root that produced five bushels a year. On this root 
the quince is long-lived. But I have seen the trees 
over sixty years old on their own roots, and still bearing 
well. 

The size of a tree most desirable for transplanting 
must necessarily vary with circumstances. As a rule, 
young and thrifty trees will grow best, because they lose 
a smaller proportion of their fibrous roots. Large trees 
are more likely to be checked by transplanting, because 
of the greater loss of roots. If the tree to be trans- 
planted has not been cut back so as to reduce the top to 
a good proportion with the roots before being set, it 
must not be forgotten afterward, as much depends on 
this. If there has been a great loss of roots, as is often 
the case, it is better to reduce the top very severely, 
perhaps to one or two buds of the new wood. The tree 
will be larger at the end of the season's growth, and of 
better form. 

A suitable preparation of the ground is more conven- 
iently made before the trees are planted. No pains 
should be spared to so prepare the ground that it will 
exactly supply every want of the trees, and at once push 
them into a vigorous growth. If not well prepared 
then, no after labor can fully supply the deficiency. 
The importance of thorough work was illustrated by the 
experience of a man who had a hundred trees to set, and 
going from home for a day, left a man to plant them in 
his absence. Keturning at night, he was offended with 
his help because he had only set nine of the hundred. 
So he discharged him, and next day planted the ninety- 
one remaining himself. But, to his surprise, when they 
bore, the crop from the nine was worth more than that 



TRANSPLANTING THE QUINCE. 



51 



of the ninety-one. In tree planting, as elsewhere, " haste 
makes waste." If worth doing at all, it is worth doing 

right. 

The quince should not be planted in grain or grass, 
and especially a clover sod. Low, hoed crops, like beans 
or turnips, can be cultivated among the trees when small, 
because their culture necessitates fertilizing and stirring 
the ground ; but as soon as the trees get large, nothing 
else should be allowed to grow among them. If the 
roots happen to get frozen while above ground, they will 
die if thawed in the air ; but if buried in the soil, and 








Fig. 24. 



Fig 25. 



TWO METHODS OF HEELING. 



allowed to thaw there, they will live and grow. To 
freeze and thaw in the earth does them no apparent harm. 
If a tree has become dry and shriveled in transpor- 
tation, its plumpness may be restored by burying both 
top and roots for a few days ; but if put in water, it 
may become water-soaked, and so fail. The stem and 
branches of a newly transplanted tree may be greatly 
benefited by watering before the leaves appear, especially 
when there has been much loss of the roots. When the 
trees come to the planter from a nursery, it is best to 
heel them in at once ; for there is no way in which they 
can be kept so well as in the earth. Once properly 
heeled in, the planter can take time to plant each tree. 



52 ' QUINCE CULTURE. 

Trees received in the fall for spring planting can be 
kept in this way in good condition, and will be ready to 
plant earlier than where the planter waits till spring be- 
fore ordering them, because in the hurry of spring work 
some must necessarily wait. 

If trees are heeled-in in bundles, those inside are not 
pressed by the earth, and become dry. If the trees slope 
toward the south, they will not thaw out as soon in 
spring, as the tips shade the ground toward the sun. 
Heeling-in erect is only recommended where there is 
danger from mice. The place for heeling-in should be 
high enough to secure freedom from all danger of the 
trees becoming water-soaked. A sheltered situation is 
most desirable. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WHEN TO TRANSPLANT— KEEPING A RECORD— EF- 
FECTS OF WINDS— STRAIGHTENING TREES. 

The best season to transplant is when the sap is compar- 
atively dormant, between the fall of the leaves in autumn 
and the development of the buds in spring. To decide in- 
telligently what is the best time to transplant we should, 
as far as possible, take into account the various agents 
that influence vegetation, such as the relative warmth of 
the soil and atmosphere, and the mildness or severity of 
the climate in winter. Then, again, the nature of the 
soil will be an important consideration, as also the facility 
for doing the work in the best manner. 

The greatest difference between the mean temperature 
of the earth and the air is in October, when the earth a foot 
below the surface is from a degree to a degree and a half 



WHEK TO TRAKS PLAINT, ETC. 53 

above the mean temperature of the air. Some soils are 
much warmer than others, and serve as a natural hot -bed 
for the roots of the newly-set tree, eDcour aging the for- 
mation of a callus on cut and bruised roots as well as the 
emission of many new roots, and so preparing for a 
vigorous start in the spring, as well as a successful win- 
tering. The greater cold of the air prevents the buds 
from starting until the warmth of spring, when vegeta- 
tion generally becomes active. 

Where the climate is too cold for the newly-set 
trees to carry forward the healing of cut and bruised 
roots, which is the case where winter sets in early, and 
the ground freezes as deep as the roots extend, there will 
be great danger from fall planting. The freezing and 
thawing of all heavy soils operates greatly to the disad- 
vantage of all newly-planted trees. In warm, dry, and 
sandy soils, if the setting is well done any time before 
winter begins, or even during the mild spells of winter, 
success is a reasonable expectation. 

The soil is cold in the spring, and is much more 
slowly heated than the air, which stimulates the buds, 
and new leaves are developed more rapidly than the 
roots, and, as a consequence, the reduced roots of the 
transplanted tree are heavily taxed to supply the needed 
moisture. Now unless the top was cut back in pro- 
portion to the roots, the tree will suffer, and may die. 
Often the spring-set tree leaves out as well as the fall-set 
tree, but suddenly dries up and fails because the roots 
can not supply moisture. It does not matter whether a 
tree is just set, or has been long established, if moisture 
does not get into its top as fast as it dries out the tree 
will die, in the summer or winter, fall or spring 

Trees set in the fall are in more favorable circumstances 
to get the benefit of the winter and spring rains to settle 
the earth among their roots ; and being thus established, 
they are ready to commence new growth in the first warm 



5-4 QUINCE CULTURE. 

days of spring. Now where this is delayed till spring, it 
is often quite late before the ground is ready to work ; 
and if the season be backward, it is all the more impor- 
tant to have them in their places. Nurserymen generally 
not only send out the first choice in the fall, but give the 
trees a more careful handling, as they have more time at 
command. If not ready to set the trees, it may be better 
to secure the stock and heel in till ready. 

Spring planting will suit better than fall in Northern 
latitudes, where the ground freezes very deep, or where 
the soil is heavy and heaves with frost. At the North 
the trees are liable to be thrown up by alternate freezing 
and thawing, and the roots are often injured by being 
saturated with water in a heavy undrained soil. If the 
situation is very much exposed, staking may save the 
rootlets from being twisted off. If delayed till spring, 
always do this work as early as the circumstances will 
allow. 

Keeping a Kecord. — When different varieties of 
quinces have been planted in the same orchard, it will be 
useful to preserve a record or map of the location of 
each variety, as the labels on the trees soon fade, and 
memory is not to be trusted in years of change. Such a 
record will be found valuable for the use of new propri- 
etors, and, in case of the death or removal of the planter, 
will be of much importance. No system of labeling can 
be of equal value. 

Effects of Wind. — Whether winds will benefit or 
injure trees will depend on their character, and the 
degree of force with which they move. The swaying of 
the limbs and branches of trees as they are moved by the 
common winds that blow in every direction are beneficial, 
serving for them the purpose that exercise does for the 
animal creation. All know that exercise strengthens and 
promotes growth, and only becomes injurious when it is 



PROPAGATION OP THE QUINCE. 55 

excessive. So with the motions of trees produced by 
winds, especially during the growing season. 

" The mild wind blows 
Arid beauty glows," 

but when the storm king rides on the wings of the wind 
in the sweeping hurricane, what was a benefit becomes 
an injury. Experiment has shown a diminished growth 
in the part of a tree not moved by the wind, and that 
wind-breaks are very desirable to prevent excessive sweeps 
of winds and storms. 

Straightening Leaning Trees.— Trees in an or- 
chard are often seen out of an erect position, which may 
arise from winds or other causes. In all such cases it 
will add to beauty and the convenience of culture to 
straighten up the leaning trees. This is easily done by 
setting a stake a little distance from the tree, and then 
fastening the tree to it with a wire or cord, thus securing 
it in a perpendicular position during the growing season. 
I have found a single year's growth in the desired posi- 
tion all that was necessary for permanence. It is best 
to do this when trees are quite small ; or, if large, when 
blown over, without delay. 



CHAPTER X. 
PROPAGATION OF THE QUINCE. 

The quince may be multiplied from seeds, cuttings, 
and layers. The seed of -a species will always produce its 
kind, but the seed of a variety is uncertain. If propa- 
gated from layers or cuttings, or by grafting or bud- 
ding, the trees will always be of the same variety as the 
parent tree. 

1. Propagation by Seeds. — All the recent varieties 



5G 



QUINCE CULTUKE. 



of merit seem to be chance seedlings, which suggests that 
seed should be selected from the best specimens of the 
choicest varieties, that there may be still further im- 
provement. Quince seed for planting should never be 
allowed to get thoroughly dried before it is planted. If 
not convenient to plant when taken from the fruit, 
preserve it in moist sand till spring, when, in a well- 
prepared seed-bed, it should be covered two or three 
inches deep, and treated as other seedlings. Any one 
desiring to improve the quince by seedlings will do well 




Fig. 26.— LAYERING. 



to study the theories of Van Mons, of Belgium, and 
Knight, of England, as described by Downing. 

2. Propagation by Layers. — It is a very simple 
operation to bend down a limb, and keep it covered with 
moist earth till it is rooted, and then cut it from the 
parent tree. If the bent branch is partly cut off or slit 
up under a bud, or twisted like a withe at the lowest 
point, it will help both the bending and rooting. A wire 
twisted around the layer just below the bottom bud in 
the ground, and holes punched through above and below 



PROPAGATION OF THE QUINCE. 



57 



the wire, may help ; or the holes may be made through 
the layer in the buried portion to stimulate its rooting 
from the callus of the wounds. The bark is sometimes 
cut nearly around the layer just below a bud, and bits of 
wood removed below this cut to induce the formation 
of a callus, from which roots are emitted. It is some- 
times necessary to fasten down stiff branches with a 
forked peg or a weight. Young shoots of thrifty trees 
make the best layers. Early spring is the best time to 
put down layers, that they may be well rooted by autumn. 
Mound Layers or Stool Layers differ from the others 




Fig. 27.— MOUND OK STOOL LAYERING. 

by having the earth heaped up around them instead of 
being buried in the earth. The sprouts from stumps or 
around growing trees, being well banked up, will readily 
root as high as moist earth presses against them. 

3. Propagation by Cuttings is probably the best 
method of multiplying quince trees. Cuttings of large 
branches are better than those of small shoots. The 
amount of wood seems to measure the vital force to form 
both roots and tops. From twelve to fifteen inches is a 
good length, enabling us to plant deeply, and so guard 
against drought. Small cuttings may be cut shorter, and 



58 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



have a piece of apple or quince root grafted on to push 
them. The chief thing is to guard against the exhaus- 
tion of sap by evaporation until roots are formed. Fa- 
cilities for regulating light, heat, air, and moisture with 
precision will enable us to succeed with a succulent cut- 
ting furnished with a few leaves. When the air is 





Fig. 28.— LARGE CUTTING. 



Fig. 29.— ROOT-GKAFTING. 



warmer than the earth, buds are excited more than roots; 
and when the ground is warmest, root growth is most ex- 
cited. Hence the custom of burying cuttings inverted 
during the winter, to keep the buds dormant while a 
callus is forming for the emission of roots. 

In preparing the small cuttings to receive the pieces of 
roots grafted on them, the chief thing is to have their 



PROPAGATION OF THE QUINCE. 59 

cut ends fit, so that the inner bark shall match at least 
on one side and at the end of the cutting. 

These grafted cuttings may be quickly dibbled in. 
making a hole deep enough to receive the whole length 
except a bud or two above the surface. Holding the 
cutting in the hole at the right depth with the left 
hand, push the earth firmly against the cutting with the 
dibble, as you would in planting a cabbage. For lack of 
such firming the earth there are many failures. 

The fall, after the leaves have dropped, is generally 
preferred for taking the cuttings ; but they may be taken 




Fig. 30.— ROOT CUTTING. 



much later. I have had some cuttings grow in tbe open 
air, which were made in May, after the trees were growing. 
Root Cuttings a foot or so long are best prepared be- 
fore the buds swell in spring. I have trees from pieces 
of roots cut off by the plow as late as June. Plant at an 
angle of about forty-five degrees, or as near as you can to 
their natural position. 

4. Propagation by Grafting is successful where the 
inner barks of both stock and cion are made to fit to- 
gether. A union forms most readily between varieties 
of the same species ; next between species of the same 
genus, and is limited by genera of the same natural order. 
By this law one variety of quince will do best grafted on 



GO 



QUINCE CULTURE. 




another ; and next on the apple, white thorn, and June- 
berry. On the white thorn it escapes the borer. 

The choice of wood for cuttings is last year's growth 
from near the center of the tree. Be sure they are from 

healthy and vigorous trees. 
If trees are propagated from 
bearing ^:ood they will come 
into fruit sooner than if from 
blind wood. Here is a rea- 
son for the difference in the 
bearing age of trees from the same parentage. 

Spring is the best time for grafting, except the root 
grafting already described. In March we work by the 
methods best suited while the bark adheres to the wood, 
and later by those suited to a bark easily separated 
from it. 

Cleft Grafting is the most common method, and is 
done by cutting off the stock smoothly, and splitting it 



Fig. 31. 

SPLITTING KNIFE AND CHISEL. 





Fig. 32.— CLEFT GRAFTING. Fig. 33.— SPLICE GRAFTING. 

down from an inch and a half to two inches, according 
to the size of the stock and the thickness of the cion. 
Into the cleft set the cion, with the end cut wedge- 
shaped, the outer edge a trifle thickest, and so placed 
that the liber or inner bark of the graft and stock shall 



PROPAGATION OF THE QUINCE. 



61 



match ; then bind and cover all exposed parts with wax 
or clay, and the work is complete. 

Splice Grafting or Whip Grafting is only adapted to 
small stocks. If the stock and cion are of the same size, 
they will make a perfect match. 
If one is larger than the other, 
they will match on one side and 
end. Cut each with a slope about 
an inch and a half long, and 
make a tongue for convenience 
in matching the parts. Bind to- 
gether and wax well. 

Saddle Grafting is a modifi- 
cation of whip grafting easily 
understood by the illustration. 

Side Grafting is a simple way of propagation free 
from some of the objections to cleft grafting. It is a 
very convenient method of inserting a limb to restore 
a balance to the head, or provide shade for exposed 





Fig. 34.— SADDLE GRAFTING. 






Fig. 35. Fig. 36. 

SIDE GRAFTING — TWO METHODS. 

parts. The first method is like budding with the bud 
extended to a cion. The second is like cleft grafting, in 
a cut on the side of a tree or limb. 

Crown Grafting differs from side grafting by having 



li-i 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



the stock cut off as in cleft grafting. It is specially ser- 
viceable for stocks too large to split, and is best done 





mm 



Fig. 37. Fig. 38. 

CROWN GRAFTING. 

when the bark will slip. The stock is not split, but the 
tongue of the cion is slipped down under the bark as in 
budding. 

The advantages of cionswith only one or two. buds are, 
that they do not dry as soon as longer cions, they 




Fig. 39.— BUDDING KNTFE. 

afford less leverage to winds, and are less liable to be 
injured by birds lighting on them. 




Fig. 40.— BUDDING KNIFE. 

5. Propagation bx Budding follows the same law of 
affinity observed in grafting. The buds may be taken 



PROPAGATION OF THE QUINCE. 



63 



from wood of the growing shoots well matured, or from 
the preceding year's growth. A cion too late for graft- 





Fig. 41.— STICK OF BUDS. 



Fig. 42.— CUTTING A BUD. 



ing may be treated as a cutting till its buds can be used. 
The bark of a quince tree can be raised for the insertion 
of a bud most of the growing season. The best place to 
insert it is near a bud, or where a bud 
has become a branch, as the supply 
of cambium is there most abundant. 
The bud, with its shield of bark, is cut 
from above or below, beginning to cut 
half an inch off, and so cutting as to 
leave a thin piece of wood under the 
bud. On the stock cuts are made 
like a f- The corners of the bark 
being lifted, we slide the bud to its 
place, and complete the operation by 
winding a ligament of bass or raffia 
around the stock above and below 
the bud, tying it securely. Fig. 43.— training a 

Failure may arise from injury to shoot from a bud. 

,-i , • • , , . , . . A, place to tie the stock to 

the cambium in cutting and raising shoot,- n, place to cut off the 

° ° stock afterward. 




64 QUINCE CULTURE. 

the bark of the stock, from too narrow a cross-cut to 
receive the shield of the bud, from using immature 
buds, from the shield being too short (it should be at 
least an inch long), and from being loosely tied, so as to 
dry out. The south side of a stock is dryer in summer, 
and so is to be avoided. 



CHAPTER XL 
PRUNING THE QUINCE. 

In a natural condition we may regard it as a rule that 
the tree will maintain a harmonious relation of all its 
parts. The roots and branches will correspond with 
each other. Every twig, bud, or leaf removed from the 
top, and every fiber and spongelet cut off from the roots, 
will hurt or help the tree. No one is competent to re- 
duce the roots, or diminish the leaves and branches, 
unless he possesses enough knowledge of the laws which 
regulate the action of the organs of vegetation to foresee 
the effect which will follow such removals. J. Lindley 
truly says: " If well-directed, pruning is one of the most 
useful, and, if ill-directed, it is among the most mis- 
chievous operations that can take place upon a plant." 

1. Pruning at Transplanting. — As already stated 
elsewhere, all bruised and decayed roots should be re- 
moved ; but the case is different with healthy roots. AVe 
must remember that every healthy and unmutilated root 
which is removed is a loss of nutriment to the plant, and 
that, too, at a time when it is least able to spare it; and 
there can not be any advantage in the removal. The top 
should always be cut back at this time, so as to preserve 
a balance in its proportion to the reduced roots. If we 
infringe on the reciprocal action which naturally exists 



PRUNING THE QUINCE. 



65 



between the roots and branches, evil results will surely 
follow. The accumulated life-force sets the roots to 
forming new spongioles, and the buds to developing 
their leaves ; the elementary substances, which the roots 
absorb, are acted on by the leaves , and the new mate- 
rial thus prepared extends both the roots and branches. 
If transplanting has been well performed, the tree will 
need little more pruning than would otherwise be desir- 
able to promote a more vigorous growth ; but if the roots 
have suffered in being dug, there will be a decided ad- 
vantage in cutting back the new shoots to the fewest 




Fig. 44.— PRUNING SHEARS. 

buds that will give the desired form to the head of the 
tree. 

2. Pruning for Form. — The intelligent and observ- 
ing horticulturist will find, by starting with a young tree, 
that he can secure almost any form desired, by judicious 
pruning. Trees make the most vigorous growth from 
terminal buds. By cutting off the shoots by upper and 
under buds the new growth will be upward or downward ; 
and side buds will give a growth to the right or the left. 
Keeping in mind the general principle that limbs must not 
grow so as to cross and chafe each other, I have settled into 
the practice of cutting back all my trees annually, begin- 
ning when they are one year old, and following them up 
as they increase in size and multiply their branches. The 



CG 



(J.riNCE CULTURE. 



cut sliould be made far enough above the bud to insure 
its not drying out, and near enough to grow over the 
end as the tree enlarges. The age of the tree, and its 
thriftiness or feebleness, must be taken into account in 
determining how far back to cut. 

The quince tree is naturally inclined to grow into a 
bushy head, but it also pushes up one or more leaders, 
and can be trained into a regular tree-form if that be 
desired. To secure an upright growth, cut back the 
leader to an inside bud. To spread out branches, cut so 
as to leave the bud on the outside. Clean off a large 
portion of the little twigs that multiply and die along 
neglected branches, and besides saving resources, you will 





Fig. 45. — BUDS AND BRANCHES. 



improve the smoothness and beauty of the limbs. The 
fact that so many of these die along the limbs is Na- 
ture's admonition to prune the tree. It is quite com- 
mon for the buds along a vigorous shoot to develop 
threefold, and it will add to the beauty and symmetry 
of the form to begin with the young tree and rub off all 
but the strongest bud ; and where limbs are not wanted, 
rub all off. This will direct the energy of the tree 
into the most desirable channels. It is worth while to 
go over a tree for this purpose a number of times 
during the growing season, because one strong shoot 
is worth more than two or three feeble ones having 
the same amount of material divided between them. 



PRtmiHG THE QUINOE. 67 

At a (fig. 45) are triple buds at a favorable age to easily 
rub off supernumeraries. At b they are so far developed 
as to need, the knife to cut off the extras. At c we have 
the vigorous shoots growing as desired. 

How much to cut back each year is a matter of judg- 
ment. In a shoot from one to two feet long, cut back 
about half the length. A growth of three to five feet 
may be reduced a little more than one-half. Treated in 
this way, the tree pushes vigorous side shoots, and makes 
a lower head, which is less affected by winds, is more 
convenient to keep in order, the fruit is easily gathered, 
and however heavy the crop, the branches are so stocky 
they never break. If a cone-shaped head is desired (and 
this is the ideal form of many), it can be secured by 
leaving the lower branches longest. The natural flow 
of sap to the upper branches will be diminished, and 
increased in the lower, and thus their growth will be 
proportionally increased. If the branches are nearer 
than four to six inches, cut out those worst situated, or 
least likely to be fruitful. A judicious thinning and 
shortening of crowded and irregular branches will promote 
both thrift and fruitfulness. When a shoot pushes so 
strongly as to attract to itself too much of the nutriment 
of the tree, pinch off the end, and repeat the operation 
till its buds push like those on the other shoots, till, by 
compelling an equal distribution of nutriment, all shoots 
grow in like proportions, if not equally. 

3. Prtoikg to Promote Growth. — When a stunted 
tree is cut back judiciously, the remaining buds may be 
expected to grow with renewed vigor, because the forces 
of growth are concentrated on a smaller number of buds. 
The inner bark of a feeble tree is thinner, and the sap 
vessels smaller ; the more concentrated growth thickens 
the bark and enlarges the sap vessels; and so there is a more 
ready flow of all the nourishing fluids, and a consequent 
increase of growth. In the laboratory of the leaves the 



C8 QUINCE CULTURE. 

sap is matured, and as it descends through the bark to 
the roots it deposits the matter which is added to the 
tree ; while the part of the sap not thus expended goes 
into the alburnum, and joins the upward current, com- 
municating powers unknown to the recently absorbed 
fluid. What is thus true in regard to a feeble tree is yet 
more manifest in stronger and older trees. 

To secure all the benefit, the pruning should be done 
in the winter, when there is the greatest amount of 
vitality stored up for use the coming season. In the 
latitude where the ground seldom freezes deep, the tree 
continues to absorb food by its rootlets, which is dis- 
tributed over the branches. But when the primings are 
wanted for cuttings, they will be found that much 
stronger for the same reason. I have never taken off 
cuttings for propagation earlier than December or Janu- 
ary, though I have no doubt of their success when taken 
earlier. 

I can not too strongly recommend a severe pruning of 
feeble young trees, both in the nursery and orchard. If 
we leave only a bud or two, the concentration of vigor may 
restore a healthy growth to the tree, which will continue 
as long as other conditions are favorable. 

4. Pruning for Fruitfulness. — The general law 
is, that excessive growth and great fruitfulness can not 
co-exist in the same plant. Accordingly, a number of 
devices are employed to so far change the growth as to 
secure the formation of fruit buds. "The buds of fruit 
trees which produce blossoms, and those which afford 
leaves only, in the spring, do not at all differ from each 
other, in their first stage of organization, as buds. Each 
contains the rudiment of leaves only, which are subse- 
quently transformed into the component parts of the 
blossom, and in some species of the fruit also." From 
the freaks in Nature's mode of operation, it is plain that, 
while the various parts of a blossom differ both in ap- 



PRUNING THE QUINCE. 6b 

pearance and office from the leaves, yet, under some cir- 
cumstances, they all assume the same appearance and 
office. Accepting this idea, we are still unable to ex- 
plain how or why a given course of treatment causes a 
tree to convert a part of its buds into flowers, by forming 
their leaf -scales into calyx, corolla, stamens, and pistils, 
while its other buds become branches clothed with 
nothing but leaves. 

The period of fruitfulness varies in different species of 
plants, and in different varieties of the same species. It 
is often in our power to advance or retard these periods 
by our methods of cultivation. The law as stated by 
Lindley is, ' ' Whatever produces excessive vigor in plants 
is favorable to the formation of leaf -buds, and unfavor- 
able to the production of flower-buds ; while, on the 
other hand, such circumstances as tend to diminish lux- 
uriance, and to, check rapid vegetation, without affecting 
the health of the individual, are more favorable to the 
production of flower-buds than of leaf-buds." 

(a.) Boot Pruning, if performed at the right time, 
checks too vigorous growth in highly cultivated trees and 
renders them fruitful. How far from the trunk of the 
tree to cut off the roots must be determined by the size 
of the tree. Wm. Saunders recommends from three to 
six feet from the stem, according to the size of the tree, 
and to perform the operation by digging a circular 
trench, so as to cut off all the roots. He says: " If done 
in August, the supply of sap will immediately be lessened, 
the wood-maturing principle accelerated, and fruit-buds 
formed. The operation has been performed in spring 
with but little benefit^ but if done in the fall can not fail 
in producing the desired results." F. P. Gasson cuts off 
the roots of a tree four inches in diameter, within two 
feet of the trunk, only leaving a circle of roots four feet 
in diameter ; and this, too, after the leaves have fallen in 
autumn. He fertilizes liberally in the fall with solid 



fo 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



manure. The following spring and summer he waters 
well with rich liquid manure, especially if the weather be 
dry; and besides, gives an annual dressing of lime. As a 
result of this treatment his trees make short, stiff wood, 
well supplied with fruit buds. He thins out the small 
and poor fruit, and then allows the trees to bear full 




Fig. 46. — FIVE YEAH old tree before pruning {From Photograph). 

crops. The pruning is done every second year, widening 
the circle of roots at each successive pruning. 

The unproductive tree is sometimes brought into bear- 
ing by being transplanted. The check to growth stops 
the leaves from consuming the nutriment accumulated 
in the branches, and which they would have expended in 
making more wood, and so nutritious matter accumulates 
and fruit-buds are formed. The same principle is seen 
to operate in the abundant crops that follow the years 



PRUNING THE QUINCE. 



71 



when trees have their crops destroyed by late frosts. An 
excessive crop so far exhausts the nutritious matter 
stored in the branches, that the tree takes an off year to 
recover and lay up for the next. 

(b.) Pruning the Limbs to promote fruitfulness must 
of necessity be done in the summer, when it will reduce 
the young wood-growth, and so lead to such an accumu- 
lation of sap in the branch as will organize the remaining 
buds to produce fruit. "If of two unequal branches 




Fig. 47.— five tear old tree aeter pruning {From Photograph). 

the stronger is shortened, and stopped in its growth, the 
other becomes stronger; and this is one of the most 
useful facts connected with pruning, because it enables a 
skillful cultivator to equalize the rate of growth of all 
parts of a tree." 

This shortening of the growing twigs should be done 
when they are so tender they can be pinched off with the 
thumb and finger. If the next bud immediately pushes 
into another extension of the shoot, it will be necessary 
to pinch off again a little further on, even to the third 



72 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



or four tli time. An excess of wood is the occasion of 
barrenness oftener than is supposed. The tree exhausts 
its strength in sustaining and extending its woody fiber 
at so many points, that it has little vigor left to form 
fruit-buds or mature a crop of fruit. Nature intimates 
this sometimes by all at once dropping off all the fruit 
that is set after an abundant blossoming. The outer 
branches are most fruitful as a rule ; and if the head is 
kept open the fruit is better. 

The two pictures of one of my trees are an illustration 
of such an experience. This tree, now eight years old, 





Fig. 48. 

BAD AND GOOD PRUNING. 



Fig. 49, 

RESULT OF BAD PRUNING. 



grew about sixteen inches from the cutting the first 
year, and was then transplanted, and cut back to within 
six inches of the ground. The second year it made a 
growth of four shoots of about five feet each ; and these, 
in turn, were cut back to about three feet, throwing out 
the side shoots that form the head. When five years old 
it stood eight feet and five inches high before it was 
pruned. It has borne since it was three years old, the 
last crop being one hundred and twenty quinces, the two 
largest filling a quart can. The longest shoot grown 
with this crop was six feet and four inches, in the midst 
of several others only a little shorter. 



PRUKING THE QUINCE. 



I have thus far treated of pruning as it should be done 
with the knife or shears, before the limbs are large 
enough to need a saw. But when trees have been 
neglected till large limbs are to be cut off, it is im- 
portant that they should be so cut as to give a good 
prospect of healing over ; else they may be the occasion 
of decay going into the very heart of the tree. If the 
cut is made several inches from the body, there is no 
possibility of healing over, and decay is inevitable. On 
the other hand, if the limb is cut so as not to leave a 
projecting stump, it may grow over entirely in a few 




Fig. 50.— DECAY FROM BAD 
PRUNING. 



Fig. 51.— RIGHTLY PRUNED 
BRANCHES HEALED OVER. 



years, especially if well waxed or painted. As a rule, if 
the limb cut off is an inch or more in diameter, it is well 
to cover the wound. Gum shellac dissolved in alcohol 
to the thickness of paint is as good as any thing to apply. 
It is very adhesive, soon hardens, keeps out the air and 
water, and is not affected by weather changes. It is too 
thin to hinder the lip of the growing bark from closing 
over the wound. Grafting wax, or a composition of 
equal parts of resin and tallow, melted and applied with 
a brush or swab, has been successfully used. A medi- 
cated tar, made by dissolving half an ounce of corrosive 
sublimate in half a gill of spirit, and then heating and 



7-i QUINCE CULTURE. 

mixing in tar, is found excellent. If too thin to handle 
conveniently, mix in a little whiting or chalk dust. Sal 
ammoniac or spirits of hartshorn will dissolve the corrosive 
sublimate more easily than the spirit. It is an insecti- 
cide, and when a gallon of soft water is used in place of 
the tar it is a good wash to kill all insects and their eggs 
on the bark. If nothing better is convenient, a little 
grease of any kind will have a good effect on the wound. 
If a limb bleeds when it is cut off, it may be worth 
while to apply Knight's Composition of four parts scraped 
cheese with one part of shell lime, or other pure lime, 
pressing the composition strongly into the pores of 
the wood. With this he found he could instantly stop 
the flow of sap in the largest branch. The worst time 
to prune is when the sap begins to flow actively in the 
spring. By contact with the air it sours and becomes 
poison to the bark. We ought not to close this topic 
without suggesting, that when the smaller limbs and 
twigs are cut off a good sharp knife is not always the 
most desirable implement to use. It often slips and 
injures what is not intended to be cut away. Small 
limbs can be pruned more rapidly with a good pair of 
shears. 



CHAPTER XII. 
PROMOTING FRUITFULNESS WITHOUT PRUNING. 

1. This may be done by restricting root growth by 
pruning or cutting in the roots, as described on a former 
page, and need not be repeated here. 

2. Bending down strong-growing branches without 
fruit-buds, has been found to retard the circulation of 
the sap sufficiently to induce fruitfulness. The pendant 
form becomes fixed by a single season's growth, and may 
be so skillfully arranged as to secure symmetrical and 



FLOWERS AND FRUIT. 



75 



ornamental trees. July and August are favorable months 
to tie down. The branches are secured to pegs driven in 
the ground. All kinds of trees and plants may be in- 
duced to flower and fruit, no matter how 
luxuriant their growth, by a judicious use 
of the bending process. 

3. Ringing the tranches. This is done 
by taking off a ring of bark wide enough 
to arrest the circulation of the sap, com- 
pelling it to accumulate above the ring. 
The same effect is often produced by a 
ligature made of wire. The effect is to 
produce early maturity in the fruit and 
an increase in its size, but at the ex- 
pense of its quality. There seems, how- 
ever, to be no use for this operation on the quince. 

4. Grafting is a method of inducing early fruitfulness. 
A cion from a young seedling may be grafted on the 
limb of a bearing tree, and thus be brought into a fruitful 
condition much sooner than if left on the seedling stock. 
This is advantageous in testing new varieties. 




Fig. 52. 

RINGING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



FLOWERS AND FRUIT. 

It has long been observed that a very full blossoming 
often results in but little fruit ; sometimes none at all. 
Why is it thus ? A variety of causes may operate to 
produce the failure of fruit. If the weather be so un- 
favorable as to prevent the blossoms from performing 
their appointed work, failure is inevitable. When the 
weather is very dry while the trees are in bloom the fruc- 
tification is often too imperfect to set the fruit, and the 
blossoms dry up and drop off. Or, on the other hand, 



7G QUINCE CULTURE. 

if there happens to be a long wet spell just at the time 
of blossoming, I have observed that the beating rain pre- 
vents the blossoms from performing their natural office 
of fructifying, and failure follows. For the pollen of 
the stamens to become perfectly matured, it is necessary 
that the blossoms have a few days of favorable weather 
after they are expanded, to enable them to fulfill their 
office. A tree may appear to have but a few blossoms, 
but with favorable weather for all to become perfected, 
so that each produces fruit, there may be an excellent 
crop. As a rule we want our trees to carry too much. 

Again, blossoms will be found to fail because of the 
severity of the preceding winter. It may destroy the 
germs of the fruit without killing the other parts of the 
blossom. In such cases, all will appear to go right for a 
time; but, as with other things in nature, the antecedent 
cause will ultimately produce its legitimate effect, and 
the beautiful blooming proves to be only the forerunner 
of disappointed hopes. 

Still again, a tree may blossom abundantly, and the 
fruit set and grow for a while, but all at once the whole 
falls off. This may arise from the tree being too feeble 
to sustain the crop set. Like a man with too heavy a 
load for his strength, he carries it all a little way, and 
then drops it exhausted. 

Once more, it will be noticed that some varieties are 
more likely to fail after a full blossoming than others 
growing near them. This is chiefly owing to the differ- 
ence of vigor and fruitfulness in different varieties. 

A study of the peculiarities of the different varieties is 
of great importance to the cultivator. It is a matter of 
interest to observe that the great number of blossoms 
provided for in the economy of nature is to secure the 
certainty of fertility. Many will dry up and disappear 
as soon as they have done their fructifying work, while 
those attached to the stems bearing the fertilized fruit 



TETIKKIKG THE ERtllT. 77 

do not so soon disappear. The petals retain their color 
and stand out with prominence so long after the others 
have withered away as to suggest a second blossoming. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THINNING THE FRUIT. 

The story is told of a man who said it took him thirty 
years to get moral courage to prune his fruit trees. A 
large proportion of cultivators neyer attain the courage 
of their convictions in this matter. By far the most ex- 
peditious method of thinning fruit is to prune judi- 
ciously. In some varieties, after having pruned quite 
severely, there is too much fruit set to be carried to 
maturity, and a large thinning out is a necessity to pre- 
vent the trees from overbearing. To many, it seems an 
unjustifiable waste to pull off the finely-set specimens ; 
and with a serious doubt as to the wisdom of the oper- 
ation, they allow their trees to overbear. As an inevi- 
table result, the fruit is small and inferior, the trees 
are overtaxed in the effort to mature more than they 
are able to perfect, and, as a consequence, they must 
have an off year to rest and recuperate. We hardly 
realize that a tree is overbearing till the fruit has at- 
tained considerable size, and then we hate to pull off 
enough to relieve the strain. I sometimes take off half 
or two-thirds, and then there is a plenty left to be of the 
first quality. The number of bushels will be about the 
same, and the quality of the fruit greatly improved. In 
years of abundance the large fruit will sell when the 
small finds no market at any price. This difference in 
the market value of fine fruit and that produced by 
overbearing trees shows the great importance of properly 
thinning. 



78 QUINCE CULTURE. 

The thinning of quinces should not be done till 
we can judge pretty well which would fall of them- 
selves ; and this generally shows quite well by the time 
they are as large as a man's thumb. Whether this 
natural thinning is the effect of insect stings, or of dry 
weather reducing the moisture below a sufficiency, or of 
a natural selection securing " the survival of the fittest," 
is not always easy to determine. Besides all these reduc- 
tions, it will often be best to remove many others from 
very prolific trees. If, for any cause, thinning has been 
delayed till the fruit is quite advanced, still it is best to 
do it, and relieve the strain on the tree. By combining 
with this thinning of the fruit a thorough cultivation 
of the soil, a poor variety may excel a better one that is 
neglected. This will be more especially observable in 
young trees. They seem to be more easily affected than 
when older. But even the old trees seem to be rejuve- 
nated and show fruit improved beyond their possibilities 
under neglect. 

It is hardly necessary to say that deformed and imper- 
fect specimens are first to be removed, with any that 
show signs of insect stings ; and that all wormy fruit 
should be destroyed or placed Avhere the worms will die. 
Deep burial in the earth will generally kill them ; so will 
fire or water. If taken as early as it ought to be, the 
green fruit will have little value as food for any kind of 
stock. 



CHAPTER XV. 

GATHERING AND MARKETING. 

If the trees have been properly pruned annually, it 
will be a long time before they are too high to reach 
the fruit from the ground. When, in time, the fruit is 



GATHERING AND MARKETING. 



79 



borne too high to reach, a common step-ladder will be 
found convenient. A cheap and convenient step-ladder 
may be made out of two pine boards, six inches wide and 
one inch thick, for sides. The steps should be of the 
same width, and mortised into them, with a wider board 
for the top. The bottom should be wide enough to 
stand firmly, and the top only wide enough for standing 
room, with a basket for the fruit. 

The stave basket, being smooth inside, and therefore 
less liable to bruise the fruit, is preferred to the old 
splint or chip basket. The size used to be for five half 







Fig. 53. — A CHEAP STEP-LADDER. 




Fig. 54. — STAVE BASKET. 



pecks, but now it is generally for four. The old standard 
crate for shipping fruit was eight inches wide, fourteen 
deep, and twenty-three and a half long, outside measure. 
The ends and partition were cut from three-quarter inch 
pine, seven and a half wide by fourteen inches long. 
The bottom and top were six and a half wide, and three- 
eighths of an inch thick. The sides were of four slats of 
the same thickness, and two and a half inches wide. The 
whole crate consisted of thirteen pieces, often with a 
planed end for marking. These proportions are varied, 
some being wider and shorter, or narrower and deeper, 



80 QUIKCE CULTURE. 

according to the choice of the shipper or maker. 
Crates being seldom returned as "empties," they are 
about enough less in capacity than the bushel to cover 
the cost of the crate. Baskets are now returned, but 
probably will not be much longer. 

For marketing, as well as for home use, quinces should 
not be gathered until fully ripe, as they do not, like ap- 
ples, pears, and peaches, ripen up in color and flavor 
after they are picked. If gathered too early the quince is 
comparatively worthless. If the cultivator of the quince 
does not desire at once to dispose of his fruit, the later 
ripening sorts can be kept for a long time by being care- 
fully spread out in a cool chamber till the frost necessi- 




Fig. 55. — FRUIT CRATE. 

tates their removal to the cellar. With proper care 
quinces may be kept till April in common cellars. 
Of course, with retarding-house conveniences all fruits 
may be kept at will. As a rule, it will be found that the 
best time to use or sell quinces is soon after they are 
ripe. If kept too long the demand for them, as with 
most other fruits, ceases, and they are not sought for. 

There is always a market for quinces in the large 
cities, and, if the quality is good, at paying prices ; but 
often the best market will be in some of the smaller 
cities and towns. The producer will find it advanta- 
geous to lookout for such markets before the fruit is ripe, 
so as to know just where to send it when ready. There 
is a class of customers who always want the best fruit, 
and are willing to pay for it. The best is found in the 
end to be the cheapest. 



THE PROFITS OF QUINCE CULTURE. 81 

CHAPTER XVI. 
THE PROFITS OF QUINCE CULTURE. 

The profit of quince raising depends, first, on the vari- 
ety raised, some being too unfruitful to ever yield profit- 
able crops ; next, on the skill and care of the cultivator, 
the best varieties being unprofitable when neglected ; and, 
lastly, on the demands of markets. Hitherto there has 
been a market for even poor quinces; but as crops increase, 
only good fruit will be in demand at paying prices. 

N. Ohmer, of Dayton, Ohio, reported, in 1869, that he 
had two acres in quinces ; that three-fourths of an acre, 
ten years planted, had yielded crops six years regularly; 
and that in 1868 he gathered from three-quarters of an 
acre 300 bushels, which he sold at $2.50 a bushel, whole- 
sale. A New York cultivator of the Rea's Mammoth 
raised on a third of an acre a crop worth $500. I have 
found a ready market for quinces when well put up in 
both tin and glass cans, at paying prices, in the markets 
of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and smaller cities. 

My first planting of the Meech's Prolific was only 
eight feet apart, quincunx, and the trees averaged half a 
peck when five years old ; doubled it the next year, and 
trebled it when seven years old. Taking one year with 
another, my entire crop has averaged $2.50 a bushel. I 
found, when the trees were eight years old, that they 
averaged $1.22 a tree that year, being about $450 an acre. 
The Rea's has yielded a crop next in value to the Prolific 
at my place in Vineland, N. J. 

By the report of the New Jersey Horticultural Society 
for 1884, it will be seen that C. L. Jones had a yield of 
782, making seven and a half bushels, from two trees in 
his yard at Newark. He sold many of them at $6 a 
hundred, realizing $22.50, besides having 200 for himself 



82 QUINCE CULTURE. 

and friends. The two trees had been ten years planted, 
and show what can be realized from the most favorable 
conditions of growth and marketing. From the prices 
reported in several other States, the successful cultivator 
of this fruit could not fail to make it profitable. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
DISEASES OF THE QUINCE. 

Diseases in trees arise from a variety of causes, such 
as insect depredations, loss of vitality from bacteria, and 
fungi preying on the living tissue; or there may be organic 
disease reproduced from unhealthy stocks and seeds. 
One form of existence is destroyed to produce another. 
The elements of life by death and decay enter into new 
forms of life. Disease in one department of nature may 
provide for a want in another. 

The chief known causes of disease in quinces are 
bacteria and fungi. They are both low forms of vege- 
table life, the first multiplying by the division of a single 
cell, the second producing several spores in a cell. Of 
the various bacteria, each acts in a way peculiar to itself. 
Some produce disease, some act as ferments, others assist 
in the ripening of fruits, and still others aid in the re- 
generation of organic matter to form cell-structure. 

The fungi are cellular, flowerless plants, which receive 
their sustenance from the earth or the organized bodies 
on which they grow. They differ from other plants, in 
general, in chemical composition, being chiefly nitrogen 
instead of carbon ; and in their method of growth, ab- 
sorbing oxygen and giving out carbonic acid. All the 
higher forms of plant life may have one or more of these 
low forms to prey on it as a parasite by its absorbing 



DISEASES OF THE QUIKCE. 83 

roots or mycelium, or live within it as a saprophyte. A 
healthy tree possesses sufficient vigor to resist the attacks 
of diseases, and may grow on successfully when a feeble tree 
would be destroyed. A fungus may be so concealed in 
the tissues of a plant on which it is thriving, that its 
presence will only be known by the mycelium cropping 
out with spores on the surface. 

1. Quince Blight.— It seems to be well established 
that this disease, also called fire blight and twig Might, 
is the same as the pear Might in the pear and the apple 
Might in the apple. The disease has been produced in the 
June-berry (Amelanchier Canadensis), the English Haw- 
thorn {Crataegus Oxycantha), and the Evergreen Thorn 
(Crataegus Pyracantha), by inoculation, and may prob- 
ably be so produced in any member of this family of trees. 
Every part of the tree above ground is subject to its 
attacks. It may extend only to tender twigs, or it may 
entirely destroy the tree. The presence of this disease 
may be recognized by the granular appearance of the 
bark on the tender twigs, accompanied by the exuding 
of a gummy substance, of a peculiar odor, quite sticky to 
the fingers in the morning after a heavy dew, and drying 
up so as to glisten in the sun, when it forms into granu- 
lations on the discolored bark. This gummy substance, 
as seen through a microscope, resembles filamentous 
threads, each being strung with sacks of bacteria, ready 
to burst and scatter their infinitesimal germs by the aid 
of the lightest breeze, or to be washed to the earth by' 
summer showers. The author was aided in examining 
this gum from a blighted twig by Prof. J. B. Ellis, 
author of " North American Fungi," and it was found 
that so little as could be picked up on the point of a pen- 
knife, put into a drop of water on the glass slide of his 
microscope, revealed an innumerable number of spores, 
or bacteria, too small to be described. The stomata of 
a leaf, examined at the same time, was large enough to 



84 QUINCE CULTUKE. 

take in a dozen of them at once. Hence the ease with 
which the disease may be spread. 

Prof. J. C. Arthur, botanist of the New York Agricul- 
tural Station, who has given much time to the study of 
this disease, suggests that " The bacteria escape from 
the tissues in the slimy drops that ooze out from the 
diseased parts, especially in damp weather. They are 
washed off and freed from the viscid part by rains, and 
upon becoming dry are taken up by the winds. Being 
now suspended in the air, a damp day, dewy night, or 
light rain would bring them in contact with the delicate 
surface tissues of fresh cracks or wounds, in the most 
favorable way to introduce the contagion. This is quite 
in accordance with the fact that the disease usually starts 
at the ends of the branches, but also appears sometimes 
on the larger limbs, and even the trunks. It also ex- 
plains the fact that the rankest growers are most subject 
to attack, these exposing more tender surfaces, and, upon 
the disease obtaining a foothold, furnishing more succu- 
lent tissues." Insects are almost sure to carry the disease 
wherever they go, after contact with these exudations. 

The theory that ascribes the blight to bacteria is so 
well proved that it is needless to notice the older theories 
which obtained before 1880, when Prof. T. J. Burrill, of 
Illinois, began experiments to demonstrate this. "The 
bacteria connected with pear blight are all of one kind, 
and of only one kind : not the bacteria of putrefaction 
or of animal diseases, but a kind that have never been 
found anywhere except in blighted fruit trees. These 
have been named Micrococcus amylovorus. The former 
word, the generic name, means very minute bodies; the sec- 
ond, or specific name, means that they are lovers of starch. 
They are very minute vegetable organisms, and live on 
starch or similar substances. They multiply by dividing 
into two, like the figure 8; these divide again, this process 
of division and subdivision going on very rapidly." 



DISEASES OF THE QUINCE. 



85 



The bacterial theory seems to account for all the 
phenomena connected with this disease. The bacteria 
found in the disease will produce it from inoculation in 
about a week; and by the second week the stem and 
leaves of the twig will be dead, and by the third week 
the disease will be extended down the limb, marking its 
progress by the brown bark and blackened leaves peculiar 

to the blight. 

Bacteria may enter through the flowers as well as the 
tender tissues of the growing twigs, or any opening in 
the older bark of the trunk and limbs. No visible effect 
is likely to be seen for several weeks. In June, and on- 
ward for a number of months, it may be seen as branch 
after branch reveals its presence. It grows very slowly 
in cold weather, and rapidly in warm and moist weather. 
I have found the annual salting of both quince and 
pear trees, when done before the spring growth begins, 
to operate as a preventive ; but can not say there will 
be none in the future. Later salting has not always pre- 
vented it. When the disease is manifest, no time should 
be lost in removing and burning the diseased portions. 
Be sure to cut far enough below the affected parts to re- 
move all the disease. 

So long as there remains any portion of the trunk or 
branches not encircled with the blight, the tree may re- 
cover. I have trees that have done good service for 
several years, which were all destroyed except a strip on 
one side. The diseased parts were cut away, splitting off 
the blighted wood from one side of the trunk, and the 
rest has grown well, now nearly covering the split portion. 
Accepting the bacterial theory of the disease, we might 
propose to control it by spraying the trees with some 
antiseptic ; but in practice the best thing we can do is 
to prevent it as far as possible, and diligently destroy 
every trace of the disease. 

The microscope shows that both leaves and fruit are 



86 



QUINCE CULTUKE. 



more or less protected by a coating of natural varnish, sup- 
posed to be wax or silica. Whatever it may be, it is best 
to observe what soils and fertilizers supply it. Ashes and 
lime are found to im])rove the quality of fruit, and it 
may be assumed, also, that they increase the vigor of 
growth, and so aid in resisting the attacks of bacterial 
and fungoid diseases. 

2. Okange Bust (Rcestilia aurantiaca, Peck ; Cen- 
tridium Cydonice, Ellis). — This fungus affects the stems 
and fruit of the quince in June and onward. In a single 




Fig. 56.— STEM AT A BUD AS AFFECTED BY THE RCESTILIA AURANTIACA. 

instance I have seen it on the leaf stalk. The spores 
are of a beautiful orange color, globose in shape, with a 
membranous envelope, and are produced in sacks or 
pustules, which form an enlargement on the stems, re- 
sembling the black knot of plum and cherry trees. The 
little blackened quinces remaining on the trees after 
the leaves have fallen, attest its destruction of the fruit, 
and warn us against its neglect. Once in a while a stem 
survives its attacks, and so of the fruit. As the disease 
progresses the granules burst, forcing their sides upward, 



DISEASES OF THE QUINCE. 



87 



and opening out with a multitude of cups, notched at 
the edge, and shedding a profusion of yellow dust, which, 
as it falls, reminds one of the shower of sparks from an 
ascending rocket. The cups are bell-shaped, edged with 
a pretty fringe around their margins ; and are so nu- 
merous as to entirely girdle the twig or half cover the 
fruit. 

These cups, called peridia by mycologists, appear to 
haye burst through the outer covering of the bark on 




Fig. 57. — STEM BETWEEN BUDS AFFECTED BY THE K^ESTILIA AURANTIACA. 

the twigs and the skin of the fruit. The cups some- 
times rise a tenth of an inch above the surface, with the' 
lower parts attached to the substratum. The bursting 
peridia shed a liberal shower of their golden dust around 
them, which is scattered by the winds, carrying the spores, 
or, more strictly, the protospores, because they produce 
the true spores or fruit, so that each grain of this dust is 
the seed of more of these epiphytal plants. Before the 
oidium or fungus bursts out in the clusters of cups so 
prolific of dust ; the surfaces of affected parts show numer- 



88 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



ous little elevations or pustules, which become ruptured 
as ripeness is attained, when the fungus pushes through 
the opening, at the same time bursting by radiating 
fissures, and forming a fringed edge of the cups. The 
fringed edges are often recurved, revealing the orange 
spores crowded together within. At first, and while 
contained within the peridium, they are concatinate or 




Fig. 58.— FRUIT AND STEM AS AFFECTED BY THE R^ESTILIA AURANTIACA. 

chained together; but when dispersed they are scattered 
about the orifice, and often mixed with the colorless 
cells from which they have issued. 

A slice of the fruit cut out before the fungi are matured 
enough to burst the cells, shows the yellow color of the 
dust in its granular formation, as confined by the cellular 
substance of the cups. Each of the protospores con- 



DISEASES OF THE QUIKCE. 89 

tained within the peridia may germinate, and produce 
not only one, but many vegetative spores, which are ex- 
ceedingly minute, and may be regarded as the embryos 
of a fresh crop of fungi. If a vertical section be made, 
the fungi will be seen to spring from beneath, the spores 
or protospores being clustered at the bottom. The tooth- 
like fringe is only a continuation of the cellular substance 
of the cups. 

Tt is possible that the fluid parts of the spores are 
absorbed by the growing plant, and as the result, the 
plant has become inoculated with the virus, which is so 
destructive as often to discourage the horticulturist. It 





Fig. 59.— SPORE OF THE R^ES- 
TLLIA, MAGNIFIED 400 

DIAMETERS. Fig. 60. — ALLORHINA NITIDA. 

requires a great stretch of the imagination to reach the 
possible limit of their mysterious increase and consequent 
injury. 

The spores of the Rmtilia aurantiaca are from 
twenty-five to thirty thousandths of a millimeter in 
diameter. 

The only effective remedy yet discovered, is to gather 
and burn the affected parts of stems and fruit before the 
spores are scattered to spread the disease. 

The Rcestilia aurantiaca on twigs attracts the com- 
mon green and brown dung beetle, AllorMna nitida. It 
is a scaribmdm about the size of the common brown May 
beetle, and very strong. This beetle, though a friend to 



90 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



the quince cultivator, sometimes eats into corn and vari- 
ous fruits. 

3. Quince Leaf Brownness (Morthiera Mespili v. 
Cydonim, C. and E.). — This fungoid disease of the 
leaves is indicated by reddish- brown spots, which show 
on both sides of the leaf, with a small black speck in the 
center of each spot, which speck, on being magnified, 
appears to be four spores in one, each of the four being 
elliptical, and ending in a thread as long as itself. The 




Fig. 61.— LEAVES AFFECTED BY MORTHIERA MESPILI. 

rounded spots extend into coalescing brown patches, 
sometimes covering a large part of the leaf. The en- 
largement of the spots is due to the extension of the 
mycelium of the spores, which, as the disease progresses, 
kills the leaves, and they drop to the ground. The older 
leaves generally show the disease first, and from them it 
extends toward the ends of the branches, sometimes nearly 
defoliating the tree. It occurs on trees of every age. 
In studying this disease, Soraner put some spores on a 



DISEASES OF THE QUINCE. 



91 



healthy pear leaf, which there germinated, and in two 
weeks produced the brown spots with the black specks in 
the center. In the winter he found on the fallen leayes 





Fig. 62.— MORTHIERA MESPILI, MAGNIFIED Fig". 63. — MYCELIUM OF 
400 DIAMETERS. THE FUNGI MAGNIFIED. 

what he thought to be the same fungus, producing an- 
other set of spores (ascospores), which became ripe in 
April and May. Such fungi are able to grow slowly 
through the. winter, ready to spread the disease on the 
new leaves in the spring. He also found the fun- 
gus capable of wintering on the bud-scales, without 
entering on a second stage of development. Young 
and weakly trees are more susceptible to its attacks than 
stronger growing trees. The pear and thorn are also 
subject to its attacks. The only sure remedy is to gather 
and destroy the leaves. 

4. Yellow Leaf Spots {Hendersonia Cydonics, 0. 
and E.). — This is another fungus on 
quince leaves, resembling the Morthiera 
mespili, except that; the spots on the 
leaves are yellow and produce a thick- 
ening of the leaf, with a development 
on the under side of the spots like the 
bursting of the cluster cups of the Rc&s- 
tilia aurantiaca, only smaller. The hendeSonia ct- 
spores are elliptical, marked with three donia, magnified 
bars across, dividing them into four 400 diameters. 




92 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



parts, as shown in the cut. The destruction of affected 
leaves is recommended, especially as many of them are 
also affected with both of these fungi together. 

5. Leaf Mildew (Poclosphcera tridactyla, Wall). — 
This disease consists of a parasitic white mildew spread- 
ing interlacing filaments over both surfaces of the leaves, 
but developed most jjerfectly on the upper side. The 
disease appears in June, producing a multitude of color- 
less spores, which spread the fungus rapidly to other 
leaves and trees. Late in July it produces its fruit 




Fig. 65.— LEAVES AFFECTED BY THE HENDERSONIA CTDONIA. 

as so many dust-like dots of regular form and size. 
These round, dust-like specks are the sacks which 
contain the resting spores, which withstand the rigors of 
winter, and reproduce the leaf mildew the next year. It 
is most thrifty on the leaves of a vigorous tree ; but, 
with the favor of shade, may thrive on a weakly tree. It 
is also found on the leaves of apple trees, and proves very 
injurious to cherry leaves, often causing them to fall 
prematurely. Sulphur dusted on the leaves when they 
are wet is recommended as a remedy. 



DISEASES OF THE QUINCE. 



93 



6. Leaf Blight. — This is very unlike the leaf blight 
of the apple and pear. The specimens examined have 
not yet revealed to us the cause. It first appears on the 
edges of the leaves ; sometimes on one side only, but more 
generally reaching nearly all the way around the leaf. At 
first it is of a reddish brown ; but as it extends inward 
toward the mid vein, it gradually assumes a deeper hue, 
till at last it is almost jet black, and covers very nearly 
all the blade of the leaf. As the disease progresses the 




Fig. 66. — LEAF BLIGHT. 

edges of the tenderer leaves curl upward, and eventually 
the whole dies and falls. 

7. Quince Kot (Splmropsis Gydonim, C. and E.).~ 
This disease usually begins at a few points on the surface 
of the fruit, and spreads regularly in enlarging circles 
until the whole fruit is decayed. As these spots enlarge, 
the centers grow dark, and soon may be seen as a mass of 
black points, which contain a multitude of brown spores, 
each capable of spreading the disease. A sound quince 



94 QUIJS'CE CULTURE. 

being inoculated with a piece of the surface of one dis- 
eased, the spores germinated, and the rotting slowly 
progressed to the twenty-second day, under a bell glass, 
when the decayed spot was an inch and a half in diam- 
eter, and showed fruiting points of the disease. 

So long as the wax-like covering of fruit remains per- 
fect, it is difficult for the spores of disease to affect it; 
but the sting of an insect, the abrasion of a chafing limb, 
or a bruise will make a way for the germs of disease to 
enter. Hence the importance of great care in handling 
the fruit. No other preventive is known for this disease. 

8. Bark Bound or Hide Bound. — This may arise 
from the depredations of scale insects weakening the 
vitality of the cells, or it may arise from an undue reduc- 
tion of the top in pruning or grafting, producing a dis- 
proportion between the leaves and the numerous cells 
under the bark, by which their expansive force is weak- 
ened too much to push out the bark ; or injury to the 
roots may so far weaken the power of these cells that 
they become unequal to the task required of them. Pro- 
vision is made for the expansion of the bark by the forma- 
tion of cork-like cells, called suler cells, which expand so 
as to rupture the outer bark, and allow a proper enlarge- 
ment of the growing tree. Every tree has its own suber 
cell, and so the rifts in the bark of each are according to 
its own peculiar character, no two appearing just alike. 
When, from any cause, the tree has become bark hound, 
a slit of the knife will help in doing what these cells 
failed to perform. The slit should be very carefully 
made, lest, instead of helping, it injure the tree by its 
severity. Be very sure the malady exists before the 
remedy is applied, or great harm may follow. 



WIKTER-KILLIKG. 05 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
WINTER-KILLING. 

There is a difference in the hardiness of quince trees. 
Some varieties endure severe freezing better than others. 
A variety that lives one winter may die the next because 
of the changes surrounding it ; and so a tender variety 
may live, when one naturally more hardy dies. Sudden 
changes often work disastrously. This was seen in the 
winter of 1853-4 in a belt of country extending from 
New York to Michigan. Quince trees and pear trees on 
quince stocks were greatly injured by rapid successions 
of very warm and intensely cold weather. The result was, 
that nearly all the trees that were not sheltered were de- 
stroyed, or so weakened that they continued to die till 
late in the summer. The warmth had promoted sap 
circulation, and the sap, suddenly freezing, formed little 
crystals in the wood, which lacerated the fibers by every 
motion of the swaying trees. This cause may be supple- 
mented by such a freezing and thawing of the limbs and 
branches as dries the life out of them. In all such cases 
the injury to trees will be in proportion to the expos- 
ure, and so the protection of good wind-breaks is of 
great importance. In that season of such widespread 
loss, those trees that chanced to be sheltered from the 
winds escaped. It was also observed that the loss was 
not so great with trees on clayey soil that shed off the 
water, as on sandy soil that was filled with water. 

Trees transplanted in the fall, too late for the cut 
roots to heal, and for all to resume their normal func- 
tions, may in consequence fail to supply their tops with 
needed moisture, and they will become shriveled and 
winter-kill in consequence. The newly-set tree badly 
planted may suffer by the frost lifting its roots out of 



96 QUINCE CULTURE. 

their places, in which case it is likely to be winter-killed. 
A mulch sufficient to protect the roots from freezing 
during the winter is a wise precaution, not only to pro- 
tect the newly-planted trees from intense cold, but will 
be a safeguard against winter-killing in those well estab- 
lished. It has been found highly beneficial to trees to 
have a mantle of snow cover the ground all winter, be- 
cause it protects the ground from sudden changes. A 
winter rain freezing on the limbs will do little harm, 
unless accompanied by winds, because there is no danger 
of drying out the sap. The cold may be severe enough 
to weaken the vitality of fruit-buds, and they may all 
drop off after they have blossomed. 

Trees are able to endure greater cold in a dry atmos- 
phere than in a moist one. In elevated situations, trees 
will endure a severer temperature than in valleys or low 
down the hill-sides. 

It will operate favorably to so cultivate the trees as to 
secure an early growth and ripening of the wood, that it 
may be in the best condition to endure the severity of 
winter frosts. When stimulated to grow very vigorously 
late in the season, the young wood is more likely to suffer 
than that produced earlier in the season. 

The therm ometrical and hygrometrical conditions act 
together, and ^the hardiness of trees will be determined 
by the power of the tissues to withstand the pressure 
that will burst them if they contain too much sap, or to 
shrivel them by drying out their moisture, and so de- 
stroying their vitality. 

A wise precaution against winter-killing in sections 
where there is danger, is not to cultivate late in the 
season. The culture that stimulates a late growth of 
soft wood that does not ripen before the severity of 
winter sets in is to be avoided. The immature wood is 
easily injure:!, the grain is ruptured by freezing and 
thawing, and the disorganized cells in spring are no 



INSECT ENEMIES. 97 

longer able to perform their office. Secure an early 
growth of wood, that will ripen in time to be ready for 
all changes of weather, and you will have the satisfaction 
of having done wisely. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

INSECT ENEMIES OF THE QUINCE. 

Entomologists have estimated that, on an average, 
there are from four to six insect enemies to each variety 
of plants. The insect enemies of the quince exceed this 
average, but are not so numerous as the enemies of the 
apple. Quite a portion of them are alike the enemies of 
both. 

ATTACKING THE TRUNK AND BRANCHES. 

1. The Round-headed Apple-tree Borer {Saperda 
Candida, Fabr. ; Saperda livittata, Say). — This is an 
American insect, first described by Thomas Say in 1824. 
Trees growing on high ground are, other things being 
equal, more largely infested than those on low land. In 
its larval state it is called the Round-headed Apple-tree 
Borer, to distinguish it from a flat-headed species, which 
also preys on the apple, but not on the quince tree. In 
its imago, or perfect state, it is commonly known as the 
Two-striped Saperda. The full-grown larva is about an 
inch long, cylindrical in form, fleshy, and tapering from 
the head to the tail. The round head is of a chestnut - 
brown color, horny, and polished. The jaws are quite 
black, and fitted to cut the fiber of wood much as it is 
cut in boring with an auger. The chrysalis is lighter 
colored than the larva, and is marked by transverse rows 
of minute spines on the back, with a few at its extremity, 
which probably aid it in casting off its pupa skin. The 



98 



QUINCE CULTUKE. 



insect, in all its stages, will be readily recognized by the 
accompanying illustrations. 

During the months of May and June this beetle 
emerges through a round hole, having completed all its 
changes from the egg to the imago. It comes out in the 
night, and hides during the day among the leaves, which 
are now its food. The sexes pair at night, after which 
the female deposits her eggs in the bark at the collar of 
the tree. The eggs are the size of a small pin-head, and 
may be looked for from May till August. Their entire 
life history embraces about three years. Within about 






Fig. 67.— Larva. Fig. 68.— Chrysalis. Fig. 69.— Beetle. 

ROUND-HEADED APPLE-TREE BORER. 

two weeks from the laying of the eggs, they hatch into a 
larva, which penetrates through the bark to the sap-wood 
the first season, where they form a burrow, and may 
often be detected by the discolored appearance of the 
bark of young trees, or by the fine-grained castings they 
have pushed out of their holes. They remain in the tree 
three years, becoming each year more destructive. Be- 
fore the end of this time, as they approach the comple- 
tion of their larval growth, they cut a passage through 
the heart-wood of the tree, extending it outward to the 
bark. These passages are cut very direct up to this 
point for a future exit, or they may be found turning 
abruptly back in any direction. With an instinct bor- 



INSECT ENEMIES. 99 

dering on intelligence, the larva now fills the upper part 
of its hole with its woody dust against the bark ; then 
turns round and fills it below with woody fibers of the 
heart-wood, when it again turns its head upward, and 
there rests till, in the next spring, the matured larva 
casts off its skin and reveals the chrysalis. In three 
weeks more the pupa has become a beetle, the soft parts 
soon harden, and in a few days it makes its way through 
the castings in the upper end of its passage, cuts* a 
smooth round hole through the bark, about three-six- 
teenths of an inch across, from which it escapes. 

Remedies,— The best remedy is to prevent the beetle 
laying the eggs in the bark of the tree. This may be 
done by wrapping petroleum paper, or any like substance, 
around the collar of the tree, letting it reach from the 
ground high enough to protect it. Alkaline washes 
have been found distasteful to this insect ; and a wash 
of strong soap-suds thickened with washing-soda will 
keep it away. Wash as early as May and June, and 
keep the ground clear of grass and weeds for a harbor. 
I have found clean culture a good protection when 
neglected trees were badly infested, and some were de- 
stroyed. A good formula for a wash is two pounds 
of soft soap and a quarter of a pound of sulphur in a 
pail of water. Apply with a swab or brush. 

Christopher Shearer, a very successful horticulturist 
of Pennsylvania, recommends a wash of four gallons of 
whitewash, two quarts of clay, two quarts of fresh cow 
dung, and one quart of strong lye, with water enough to 
mix well. Scrape the earth away from the collar of the 
tree, and apply with a swab or brush in May and August, 
reaching well up the tree. Eeturn the earth that was 
removed. He finds it effective with the peach and 
apple trees as well as the quince. The main thing is to 
prevent the laying of the eggs, and this does it. 

Harris recommends plugging up their holes with cam- 



100 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



plior. Downing advises to heap ashes or lime about the 
collar of the tree. He would protect nurseries by wash- 
ing young trees with a solution of a pound of potash to a 
gallon of water. 

If the larvae have already got into the trees they should 
be dug out or destro}'ed in their holes. Annealed wire 
or small strips of whalebone have been found useful to 
run into the holes. Besides the summer examinations, 
it is well to look over the trees in the fall and winter to 
make sure the larva? are not in them. 

2. The Quince Scale (Aspidiotus Cydonim, Corn- 
stock). — This is an enemy found on quince trees in 
Florida. The scale is gray, and somewhat transparent. 
The shape is convex and the size only about six hun- 
dredths of an inch across. The remedy is a strong solu- 
tion of potash or soft soap, applied with a swab or brush. 

3. The Woolly Aphis (Aphis lanigera or schizoneura, 
Hausmann). — The downy plant lice, now placed in the 

genus Eriosoma, are among the 
most destructive species. This 
aphis was imported on fruit trees 
from Europe, and yet in England 
it is called the American Blight. 
It is most commonly found on 
apple trees in the colder sec- 
tions. It was on the quince tree 
in an apple orchard at Northamp- 
ton, Massachusetts, where it at- 
tracted my attention some years 
asro. The tree had numerous 
shoots like those that spring up around apple trees, and 
these were abundantly infested. I am thus particular in 
giving the location, as I have not seen it on quince trees 
farther south, and have not seen any notice of it on the 
quince by other writers. It may be readily recognized 
by the woolly covering from which it takes its name. 





mm 

Fig. 70.— WOOLLY APHIS. 



INSECT ENEMIES. 101 

(See figure 70.) The numerous punctures they make 
in the bark of the tender shoots produce warts or ex- 
crescences on the bark, till the limbs become sickly, the 
leaves turn yellow and drop off, and sometimes the whole 
tree dies. 

Remedies. — The lady-bugs and their larvae, the larvae 
of the Syrphus and lace- winged flies, and the little chal- 
cid fly (Aphelinus mali, Hald.), all feed on these plant- 
lice. The old bark should be scraped off wherever it 
makes a harbor for them, and then with a stiff brush 
they should be treated to a solution of lime and sulphur 
(five pounds of lime to one of sulphur in two gallons of 
water, heated till the sulphur is dissolved). The earth at 
the roots, as far as practicable, should be exchanged for 
fresh soil. A pound of potash in a gallon of water is 
effective. Another application is made, melting three 
ounces of resin with the same quantity of fish oil, and 
applying it warm with a paint brush. Spiders spin their 
webs over and feed on them at their leisure. 

4. The Seventeen- Year Cicada, commonly called 
Locust (Cicada septendecim, Linn.). — This insect de- 
rives its name from the time it requires to pass through 
its several changes. The long intervals at which they 
appear, and the little damage they do to the quince, make 
any extended description of the seventeen-year locusts, 
however interesting, quite unnecessary here. It may be 
found in any good work on entomology. The damage 
done by these insects can not be prevented. They can 
not eat, and the only injury they do above ground is 
confined to the small branches in which they deposit 
their eggs ; but when they go over a whole tree in this 
way it becomes a serious matter. These branches die 
and fall off, and there is nothing to do but trim off the 
rough ends with a smooth cut. In the larva state they 
do much injury to the roots of trees. The birds, poultry, 
etc., destroy many. The plow destroys more in culti- 



10-4 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



vatcd grounds. The work of these interesting insects, 
however, is confined chiefly to our native woods, and 
their numbers, consequently, can not easily be reduced. 



climbing cut-worms (Agrotidce). 

Cut-worms are the caterpillars of widely-spread species 
of nocturnal moths. Most of them confine their depreda- 
tions to young and succulent plants, which- they cut off 
just above or below the surface of the ground. Four 
species of this numerous family are in the habit of 
trees at night, and doing serious 



ascending 
eating 
in 



damage 



b y 

c hards 



off 



light 



the grov 
sandy 



soil 



twigs and 
are most liable 



foliage. 



to 



Or- 
their 




Fig. 71.— MOTH. 

attacks. While the several species differ in size, in color 
and markings, both in the larva and imago state, they 
are much alike. In their general appearance they are 
smooth and naked larvae of some shade of gray, green, 
brown, or black, with dusky markings. The female lays 
about 600 eggs on the twigs of the trees, where they do 
their mischief. They eat at night, and are, therefore, 
seldom seen. Having finished their nocturnal meal, they 
fall to the ground, and hide in the earth. 

5. The Variegated Cut- Worm (Agrotis saucia,Tliib- 
ner). The moth, with wings expanded, measures about 
an inch and three-quarters across. The fore wings are 
grayish brown, marked with brownish black. The hind 



INSECT ENEMIES. 



103 



wings are white and pearly, shaded toward the margin 
with pale brown. The chrysalis is of a deep mahogany 
brown, with dotted markings on each side, and sharp 




Fig. 72.— CHRYSALIS OF THE VARIE- 
GATED CUT-WORM. 





Fig. 73. — LARVA OF THE VARIE- 
GATED CUT-WORM. 



Fig. 74.--EGGS OF THE VA- 
RIEGATED CUT-WORM, 
a, Magnified ; b, Natural Size. 



pointed at the tip. The larva pupates in the ground, 
where it forms a smooth, oval, earth cocoon. The larva 
becomes full grown by the middle of June, when it is of 




Fig. 75.— LARVA AND MOTH OF THE DARK-SIDED CUT-WORM. 

a dull flesh-color, mottled with brown and black, hav- 
ing elongated velvety black markings on the sides. 

6. The Dakk-sided Cut-Wokm (Agrotis Cochranii, 
Kiley). The moth is light gray, marked and shaded 
with brown, and smaller than the Variegated. The larva is 
a little over an inch long, with dark ashen gray sides and 



104 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



lighter color above. The chrysalis in the earth cocoon is 
about seven-tenths of an inch long, yellowish brown with 
darker brown markings. 

7. The Climbing Cut- Worm (Agrotis scandens, 
Kiley) is very destructive to buds and tender stems and. 

leaves. The body of the moth 
is about seven-tenths of an inch 
long, and the spread wings meas- 
ure nearly an inch and a half 
across. The fore wings are of 
a light bluish gray with darker 
markings. The hind wings are 

Fig. 76.-AGROTIS SCANDENS. ^^ ^^ r^ j^ [& ^^ 

an inch and a half long, of a light yellowish gray, varie- 
gated with dull green. It has a dark line along the back, 
with fainter lines along the sides. The spiracles are 
black. The chrysalis is brown. 

8. The Mamestra Picta, or W-marked Cut- Worm 
{Agrotis clandestine!,, Harris), feeds on succulent plants, 
low bushes, and the buds of trees. It is supposed to 
have two broods a year. The first transformation of the 





Fig. 77.— W-MARKED 
CUT-WORM. 




Fig. 78.— MOTH OF W-MARKED 
CUT-WORM. 



chrysalis to the moth occurs about the first of June and 
the second near the end of August. The fore wings are 
of a dark ash-gray, marked by deeper colored lines, mak- 
ing their zigzag course a distinct W, near the outer hind 
margin. The hind wings are a dull white, faintly tinged 



INSECT ENEMIES. 



105 



with brown on the outer edge. The chrysalis is of the 
shining brown color common to the species. The larva 
is light yellow, variegated with three broad, black, longi- 
tudinal stripes, one on each side, the other on the top of 
the back. The head, belly, and feet are tawny. The 
lateral black stripe consists of numerous transverse black 
marks on a pure white ground. On account of its 
stripes, Dr. Melsheimer called ifc the zebra caterpillar. 
It does not conceal itself in the ground until it is ready 
to pupate. 

Remedies. — The common red ants capture and kill 
them. Insectivorous birds devour them. As prevention 





Fig. 79.— CALOSOMA SCEUTATOE. Fig. 80.— CALOSOMA CALIDUM. 



is better than cure, we may attract the moths by little 
bonfires, and destroy them. We may attract them by 
cider, and water sweetened and flavored with vinegar. 
We may keep the larva from climbing the trees by 
fastening around them strips of tin or zinc like inverted 
funnels. Cut-worms, like other caterpillars, have de- 
stroyers in the Tachina flies, and the Ichneumons are 
their parasitic enemies. I discovered one of these climb- 
ing worms a few years ago in the very process of destruc- 
tion by parasites. The worms crawled through the skin, 
leaving no visible mark, and then spun their cocoons on 



10t) QUINCE CULTURE. 

the stem that supported the cut-worm. Further obser- 
vation showed that they pupated ten days before coming 
forth to repeat their work of destruction. The female 
of this parasite lays about 100 eggs, which shows that 
they are capable of doing much good service. The car- 
nivorous beetles Calosoma scrutator and Calosoma call- 
(turn (Fabr.) are very active in hunting and eating all 
the species of cut-worms. The latter is a very beautiful 
beetle, with copper-colored spots on the wing covers. 
Their aid as destroyers of noxious insects should be 
better known and appreciated. 

ATTACKING THE LEAVES. 

9. Caterpillar of the Handmaid Moth, or the 
Yellow-necked Apple-tree Caterpillar (Datana 
■ministra, Drury). — Of all insects that prey upon the 
leaves of quince trees, I have found the Caterpillar 
of the Handmaid Moth most destructive. As one of 




Fig. 81— EGGS OF MOTH. 

its names suggests, it is also destructive of the foliage 
of the apple and also of the cherry. The eggs are laid 
on the under side of a leaf, selecting one near the end of 
a twig. They are fastened in nearly straight rows to one 
another as well as to the leaf. They vary from about 150 
to 180, each the size of a small pin head. They hatch at 
varying times from July onward, occasional broods com- 
ing out as late as September. At first they only eat the 



INSECT EKEMIES. 



107 



pulp of the leaf, leaving a pretty network of veins ; but 
in a few days they devour the whole leaf, and when full 
grown sweep every thing before them. Side by side in 
solid phalanx along the twigs and branches, they feed 



Fig. 82. — BEFORE THE FIRST 
MOULT. 



Fig. 83.— BEFORE THE SECOND 
MOULT. 




Fig. 85. — BEFORE THE FOURTH MOULT. 




Fig. 84. — BEFORE THE THIRD 

MOULT. Fig. 86. 



-AFTER THE FOURTH MOULT. 



gregariously, resting between meals in the same order, 
with both head and tail recurved over the body. If 
touched or otherwise disturbed they at once throw their 
heads from side to side in a spiteful manner, or let them- 
selves down by a silken thread, always double, which 
they rapidly spin out of their mouths. Their bodies are 





Fig. 88.— CHRYSALIS. 



Fig. 87.— LARVA AT REST. 



well covered with long^soft, whitish hairs. They moult 
four times, and attain their full growth in five or six 
weeks, and are then about two inches long. A black 
stripe extends along the back, and three black stripes 



108 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



alternate ' with four yellow ones on each side. With 
expanded wings the moth measures about two inches 
across, sometimes two and a half. 

The sexes have some points of difference. The an- 
tennae of the male have two rows of fringe beneath, with 
very short hairs nearly to their tips. In the female the 
antennae are naked. She is larger than the male. Their 
color is a light brown. The head and a large square 
spot on the thorax are dark chestnut brown. The hairs 
on this spot can be erected so as to form a kind of crest. 
The fore wings are slightly notched on their hinder 
margins, with from three to five transverse brown lines, 
and one or two dark spots in the middle (sometimes 





Fig. 89.— HANDMAID MOTH. 



Fig. 90.— PARASITIC FLY. 



lacking), and a short, oblique, dark line near the outer 
margin. In repose, the hinder part of the body is 
raised up, and the fore-legs stretched out before the 
body. The illustrations will aid in recognizing them at 
every stage of their life history. 

Remedy. — They are easily found by the naked limbs 
they have stripped of their foliage, and also by their 
droppings on the ground, and when found can be pulled 
off and crushed. The Tachina flies deposit their eggs in 
them. A small Ichneumon is also known to prey on them. 

10. The Fall Web- Worm (Hijphantria textor, Har- 
ris). — The appearance of web-tents in trees after the 
tent caterpillar of early spring has disappeared, has 
raised the question whether there be not a second brood, 



INSECT ENEMIES. 109 

But the tent caterpillar of spring only preys on a few 
kinds of trees, while the later sort are ready to work over 
a very wide range. They are much smaller, and eat 
very much longer. The fall web-worm is a caterpillar 
of the family of Arctians or Tiger moths. The name 
Hyphantria means a weaver, and is very appropriate and 
descriptive ; for the first thing they do when hatched is 
to spin a web on the leaf where they are hatched, under 
which they eat the pulp of the leaf. Their webs are so 
closely woven as to hold their excrements as a fine powder. 
The moth is white, with tawny yellow fore-thighs and 
dark-colored feet. The antennae of the males are doubly 
feathered beneath, and those of the female have two rows 
of teeth on the under side. The expanded wings meas- 




Fig. 91.— Larva. Fig. 92.— Chrysalis. Fig. 93.— Winged Insect. 

FALL WEB-WORM. 

ure about an inch and a quarter across. In repose they 
are not crossed on the back, but are roofed or sloped 
down on each side of the body. It only flies at night, 
when it lays its eggs on leaves near the end of the twigs, 
during June and July. In the North there is but one 
brood a year, but in the South there is often a brood in 
June and another in August. These caterpillars feed on 
the quince, apple, pear, and a good many other trees and 
shrubs. They attain their full growth in about three 
months, when they separate to seek places of conceal- 
ment, where they pupate in thin and almost transparent 
cocoons, in which they remain through the winter as 
chrysalids. The full-grown caterpillar is over an inch 
long, with a slender body. Their general color is gray, 
with a tinge of greenish-yellow. Trees defoliated by 



110 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



them are likely to be barren, because it is too late to 
form new foliage with fruit buds. 

Remedy. — Gather and destroy them in their webs. 
The Spined Soldier-bug (Podisus spinosus, Dallas) pierces 
their bodies with its beak, and sucks them empty. There 
are birds that pierce their webs and destroy them in 
spite of their concealment. 

11. The Bag-Worm, Basket- Worm, or Drop-Worm 
(Thyridopteryx e2)hemer(eformis, Haw). — The bag- worm 




a, Larva ; 5, Chrysalis ; c, Female ; d, Male ; e, Female bag opened ; /, The 
Worm and its Bag ; g, The Young. 

Fig. 94. — THE BAG-WORM, BASKET- WORM, OR DROP-WORM. 

of the United States has a range from Alabama on the 
south to Massachusetts on the north. The Germans 
call it Sack-trager (sack-bearer). It feeds on almost 
every variety of trees, including the quince. The names 
applied to this caterpillar are significantly descriptive. 
No sooner is it hatched than it begins to make a bag- 
like house on a tender leaf . Standing on the leaf, with 
its little tail turned up, it spins a silken ring around it- 
self, fastening bits of the leaf on the outside, and adding 
to the lower edge of the ring as they increase it upward, 



IKSECT EHEMIES. Ill 

until it reaches the tail, forming a sort of cone, as at fig- 
ure 94,/. As the caterpillars increase in size they enlarge 
their houses upward, until the elongation makes their bags 
so large and heavy they hang to one side, instead of being 
upright, as at/. They are full grown about the end of 
July when hatched the last of May or early in June. 
The habit of the full-grown worm of letting itself down 
by its silken threads, suggested the name of Drop-zvorm. 
When they travel they extend the head and enough of 
the body to use three pairs of legs, each provided with a 
strong claw, while the five pairs of very short legs within 
their case retain a strong hold with clinging hooks. 
They moult four times while growing. At each time 
they close the mouth of the sack, and retire for two days 
to cast off their skins. In closing the bag, a hole is 
always left at the end large enough to throw out their 
excrement and their cast-off skins. The body is cylin- 
drical and soft, and that portion usually concealed in the 
case is lighter colored. At maturity they fasten their bags 
securely to the twigs of the tree, instinctively avoiding 
the leaf-stalk that will fall. Then they line them with 
soft silk, and turn round, with their heads toward the 
lower orifice, where they wait to cast their skins and be- 
come chrysalids. Up to this change the sexes have been 
alike in appearance ; but henceforth they are easily dis- 
tinguishable. The male chrysalis has the form of ordi- 
nary chrysalids, being about half the size of the female. 
The female chrysalis has no sign of encased wings, legs, 
and antennae, appearing as a naked, yellowish bag of eggs 
with a ring of soft light brown hair near the tail. After 
three weeks the male chrysalis works down to the end of 
his bag, and, hanging half way out, bursts his skin, and 
emerges as a moth with a black body and glossy wings, 
as at d. The male /is proportionally stout bodied, with 
a long abdomen, and broadly pectinated antennae. The 
female has neither wings nor legs. The bag-worm is 



112 



QU1XCE (CULTURE. 



exceedingly hardy and vigorous, and readily adapts itself 
to any food available. 

Eemtdies. — There is no surer method of destroying 
them than to gather the cocoons as they hang on the trees 
and burn them. They are easily seen during the winter. 
This is emphatically applying the ounce of prevention 
that will save the pound of cure. Two insect friends aid 
us, both ichneumons. The Cryptus inquisitor (Say) is 
about two-fifths of an inch long. The Hemiteles thxjri- 
dopteryx (Riley) is about one-third of an inch long. 






Fig. 95. 

CRYPTUS INQUISITOR. 



Fig. 96.— Male. Fig. 97— Female. 

HEMITELES THYRIDOPTERYX. 



Five or six of these sometimes occupy the body of a 
single bag-worm. After destroying the worm, they spin 
for themselves, within its cocoon, small wjiite cocoons. 

12. The Corn" Emperor Moth, the Io Emperor 
Moth {Hyperchiria Io, Linn., Saturnia Io, Harris, Hy- 
per chiria varia, Walker). — The common name of this 

moth probably came from 
its feeding on corn and for- 
aging on both trees and veg- 
etables, a Very uncommon 
habit with insects. It not 
only feeds on the quince, but 
a wide range of trees and 
vegetables. The moth is 
very beautiful, and only flies at night. The sexes differ 
both in size and color, the male being the smaller. His 
color is a deep yellow, with purplish brown markings. His 




Fig. 98.— LARVA OF THE CORN 
EMPEROR MOTH. 



INSECT ENEMIES. 



113 



fore wings are marked with a zigzag line near the base, 
and two oblique wavy lines near the outer margin, with 
other spots on the middle forming the letters A, H, all 
of a purplish red color. The hind wings are hairy, and 




Eig. 99.— CORN EMPEROR MOTH, FEMALE. 

purplish red next to the body, with a narrow curved 
band of like color near their posterior margin, and within 
this band there is a curved black line. On the middle 
of the wing is a black spot with a bluish center, on which 
there is a silver-white line. The upper side is ochre- 
yellow ; the head and thorax purplish brown. The an- 
tennae are broadly pectinated, while in the female they 




Mg. 100. — CORN EMPEROR MOTH, MALE. 

are feathered very narrow. The anterior wings of the 
female are purplish brown, or a faded cream color. The 
zigzag and wavy lines across them are gray, and marked in 
the middle with a brown spot, surrounded by an irregular 



114 QUINCE CULTURE. 

gray line, and towards the base are covered with a thick 
wool-like covering. The posterior wings resemble those 
of the male, as do also the head and thorax. The ex- 
panse of the wings is from two and three-quarter inches 
to three inches and a half. 

Soon after pairing the female lays her eggs in clusters 
of twenty to thirty. The eggs are top-shaped, flattened 
at the top and compressed on the sides ; about one- 
twentieth of an inch in diameter, and creamy white, with 
a yellowish spot above, which gradually increases in 
color as they come to maturity, when it is almost black, 
and the } r ellow larva show through the sides. Beginning 
their work as early as June and extending it nearly 
through September, it is easy to see that they may do 
great harm. The broods remain together till near ma- 
turity, when they separate for pupating. The full-grown 
caterpillar is two and a half inches long, pea-green, with 
a broad brown stripe, edged white, low down on the 
body. Beginning with the fourth ring, there is a brown 
triangular spot on the under side of each. The breath- 
ing pores are yellow, ringed with brown. Each segment 
of the body is dotted with little warts, armed with 
clusters of branching spines. The prick of these sharp 
spines irritates the skin like the sting of nettles. Up to 
the age when they separate, the groups move in a regular 
order, guided by the thread spun by the leader. They 
moult four times, attaining maturity in August and Sep- 
tember, according to the time they were hatched, when 
the caterpillar will measure two and a half inches in length. 
The full-grown larva descends to the ground, where it 
draws together leaves or any other convenient material 
for an outer covering, within which it makes a cocoon 
of tough, gummy, brown silk, in which it changes to a 
chrysalis. 

Remedies. — If not discovered before they are half 
grown, when together, they can be readily found and 



IKSECT EKEMIES. 



115 



destroyed after they separate, by their large droppings. 
The larvae are attacked by two parasites; one a very small, 
unnamed, four- winged fly, the other the Long-tailed 
Ophion (Ophion macrurum, Linn.). 

13. The Vaporer Moth, the White-marked Tus- 
sock Moth (Orgyia leucostigma, Smith and Abbr.). 

This moth takes the name Orgyia from a word signifying 




Fig. 101.— LARVA OF WHITE-MARKED TUSSOCK MOTH. 

to stretch out the hands, on account of its resting with the 
fore legs extended. The English name, Vapor Moth, is 
applied as descriptive of the males ostentation sly flying 
by day, or vaporing, when most other moths keep con- 
cealed. The name White-marked Tussock Moth is ap- 
plied as descriptive of the four little hairy tufts on the 






Fig. 102. 



-Pupa- Fig. 108.— Male. 

WHITE-MARKED TUSSOCK MOTH. 



back of the caterpillar. On each side is a row of smaller 
tufts of fine, yellow hairs. A narrow dark stripe runs 
along the back, and a wider dusky stripe runs along each 
side. There are two long black plumes on the first ring 
and one on the top of the eleventh ring. They are 



116 QUINCE CULTURE. 

something over an inch long at maturity. The body is 
bright yellow, and the head coral red. Though not 
gregarious, they are often numerous enough to be very 
destructive to the foliage of the quince and other trees 
and shrubs. There are two broods in a year. The first 
hatch about the middle of May, and the second late in 
July. The first brood complete their growth by the 
middle of July, spin their cocoons on the leaves or 
branches of trees, and enter into the chrysalis state. 
The chrysalis has little downy hairs, and three oval 
clusters of bran-like scales on the back. They pupate 
eleven days, when the female comes forth wingless, and 
the male with wings that expand an inch and three- 
eighths. The wings are ashen gray, crossed by darker 
wavy bands on the upper pair, which are also marked by a 
black spot near the tip, and a very small white crescent by 
the outer angle. Their antennae are broadly pectinated. 
The body of the female is a very thick, oblong oval, in 
distinctly marked sections, and of a lighter gray than 
the male. She waits on the outside of her cocoon for 
the coming of the male, and after meeting him lays her 
eggs in an irregular mass on the top of the cocoon, which 
is spun between the leaves, and then covers them with a 
frothy looking substance, which hardens to brittleness, 
and is then impervious to water. After laying her eggs 
she drops to the ground and dies. The young larvae, 
when seriously disturbed, let themselves down by silken 
threads ; and when the danger seems past they climb up 
the threads to regain their former situation. 

Remedies. — The leaves attached to the cocoon show 
where their eggs are laid, so they can easily be found 
during the winter, and destroyed. There are nine species 
of two and four winged flies that are known to be para- 
sites of this insect in the larval state. 

14. Pear-tree Slug (Selandria [Blennocampa] Ce- 
rasi, Peck). — This caterpillar is called a slug, from its 



INSECT ENEMIES. 



117 



appearanoe in the larva state. The name Blennocampa 
signifies a slimy caterpillar. Its favorite trees are the 
pear, cherry, and quince, and it is sometimes found on 
the plum and mountain ash. Ordinarily there are but 
few on a leaf, but sometimes the leaves are fairly spotted 
with them. Thirty have been counted on a single leaf. 
Professor Peck, of Massachusetts, wrote its natural history 
in 1790 with such critical accuracy that little has been 
since added to our knowledge of its life history. It is 
now quite generally spread over the country. This slug 
comes from the eggs of a saw-fly, about one-fifth of an 
inch long, resembling the common house-fly. Its body 
is glossy black. The first two pairs of legs are clay- 




Fig. 104.— Female. 



Fig. 105. — Larva. 

PEAR-TREE SLUG. 



colored, with dark thighs. The hind legs are dull black 
with clay-colored knees. The wings are transparent, 
slightly convex, and uneven on the upper side, with 
brownish veins. They reflect the changeable colors of 
the rainbow, with a smoky tinge in a band across the 
middle of the first pair. 

The female is provided with a saw-like appendage, 
with which she cuts a curved incision through the skin 
of the leaf, in which she lays her eggs singly, and gener- 
ally on the under side, from about the middle of May 
into June. In fourteen days they begin to hatch. At 
first the slugs are white ; but soon a slimy matter oozes 
through the skin, and covers their backs and sides with an 
olive-colored, sticky coat. The head is small, of a dark 



118 QUINCE CULTURE. 

chestnut color, and is entirely concealed under the body, 
which tapers almost to a point at the tail, which in re- 
pose is turned up a little. They have twenty very short 
legs, a pair under each segment, except the fourth and 
the last. They grow for twenty-six days, casting their 
skins five times, and eating them every time till the last. 
After the last moult they show a clean yellow skin, free 
from viscidity. They now show the head and segments 
of the body very plainly, and are about half an inch long. 
In a few hours after this last moult, they leave the tree 
and barrow a few inches in the ground, where they form 
little oblong-oval cavities, lined with a sticky, glossy 
substance. In these cells they pupate ; and in sixteen 
days the change is complete from the worm to the fly, 
which bursts the cell and crawls out to seek its mate. 

The flies of the first brood lay eggs for a second in 
July and August, and the second brood go into the 
ground in September and October, where they remain 
till the next spring, when they in turn change to flies. 
Where they are very abundant the foliage is entirely de- 
stroyed, and before the trees can again clothe them- 
selves with leaves, it is too late to perfect fruit buds, and 
barrenness must follow. If they are allowed to continue 
their work year after year, the trees not only become 
barren, but die. 

Remedies.— Wo, may catch the flies if we see them 
laying their eggs, for they are not very shy. Saunders 
says, if the tree is shaken while they are at work, "they 
fall to the ground, where, folding their antennae under 
their bodies and bending the head forward and under, 
they remain for a time motionless." 

Powdered hellebore in water, an ounce to two gallons, 
or either of the poisons, white arsenic, London purple, 
or Paris green, a teaspoonful to two gallons of water, or 
air-slacked lime, or ashes, or any dry dust, or slug-shot, 
sprayed or dusted on the leaves, all seem to be eifective. 



INSECT ENEMIES. 119 

I have found the dry earth under the trees all-sufficient, 
if applied before they are ready to go into the ground,' 
and the poisons may therefore be avoided. 

A very minute ichneumon fly, a species of Encyrtus, 
deposits an egg in the egg of the saw-fly; and from this 
tiny egg a maggot is hatched, which lives on the egg of 
the slug-fly, and when it has consumed it, becomes 
a chrysalis, and then a fly. Prof. Peck found that many 
eggs of the second brood were destroyed bv "this atom 
of existence." The Vireo and Cat-bird eat them from 
the leaves. In dusting tall trees a sieve fastened on 
the end of a pole is a convenient implement. An old 
tin can well punctured with holes is a very cheap sieve 
for the purpose. 

15. The Polyphemus Moth (Telea Polyphemus, 
Sim; Attacus Polyphemus, Harris). It is called Poly- 
phemus after one of the giants in mythology bearing this 
name. It is one of the largest of the native American 
silk worms, belonging to the genus Attacus. The wings 
of the female spread fully six inches ; those of the 
male a little less. It is of a dull ochre-yellow color, 
clouded with black in the middle of the wings. On each 
of the fore wings, near the center, there is an eye-like 
spot transparent in the center, crossed by light lines, and 
surrounded by rings of white, red, yellow, and black. 
Before the eye-spots of the hind wings are large blue 
spots, shading into black. On the front margin of the 
fore wings there is a gray stripe, which crosses the fore 
part of the thorax, and near the base of these wings are 
two short red lines, edged with white. At their tips are 
also two small dark spots. The hind wings are cut off 
almost square at the corners, and near their margins 
have wavy lines like those on the fore wings. The an- 
tennae of the males are very broadly pectinated ; of the 
females, lightly feathered. The combinations of form, 
color, and markings make them very beautiful. 



120 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



Finding the larva? every year on some of my quince 
trees, I have studied their habits with a great deal of in- 
terest. So far as I know, I am the first to prove that 




Fig. 106 — THE POLYPHEMUS MOTH, FEMALE. 

they have two broods a year. Packard is certainly mis- 
taken when he speaks of "our native species bearing but 
a single crop of worms," for this one is double-brooded. 
The chrysalis that winters in the cocoon is proportion- 
ately short and thick, of a reddish brown, and distinctly 




Fig. 107.— THE POLYPHEMUS MOTH, MALE. 

marked in cylindrical rings. The larvae of the first brood 
only pupate about twenty days, spinning their cocoons 
in June and July, according to the time they were 



INSECT ENEMIES. 



121 



h atched ; for the cocoons that winter, vary considerably 
in the time of bringing out their moths. They generally 
come out late in May and on into June. Then they lay 
their eggs, usually singly, on the under side of leaves, 
each moth laying several 
hundred, which hatch into 
caterpillars in ten or twelve 
days. The eggs are one- 
tenth of an inch across, 
much flattened, and of a 
color approaching to white. 
At first the abdomen of the 
female is so heavy with the abundance of the eggs that 
she flies only short distances. 

The caterpillar is a shade of green so near like the 
leaves around it, one often has some difficulty in discov- 
ering it, even after he has found where to look by its 




Fig. 108. — CHRYSALIS OF POLY- 
PHEMUS MOTH. 




Fig. 109.— WORM OF THE POLYPHEMUS MOTH. 

large droppings, and also because of its habit in repose 
of clinging to the under side of the twig with the 
back down; and the length of the body is so greatly 
contracted as to hunch up the segments. It has twelve 
large segments, each nearly as thick as a man's finger 
when the body is shortened to two inches ; but when ex- 



132 QUINCE CULTURE. 

tended to three inches, as it often is in traveling, the 
thickness is greatly reduced. 

The worm moults four times, at intervals of ten days, 
and then a fifth time after twenty days. Soon after the 
last moult it draws a few leaves together, within which 
it spins a short, thick cocoon of pure silk. In confine- 
ment I have found it spins enough of its cocoon in a 
single night to entirely hide itself ; but it evidently con- 
tinues to spin much longer on the inside, as its motions 
indicate. Like all its congeners, it spins a double thread 
from its mouth, gumming it enough to make it strongly 
adhesive, not only to all points of attachment, but to all 
parallel and intersecting threads. When finished it is 




Fig. HO. — COCOON OF THE POLYPHEMUS MOTH. 

water-proof. It pupates soon after the cocoon is com- 
plete, and in about twenty days the moths of the first 
brood appear. 

The twelve segments of the larva are each marked 
with three side rows of very bright yellow spots. The 
seven segments in front of the posterior also have a 
very bright line or bar, slightly inclined forward, and 
reaching from the dot of the upper row to that of the 
lower row, and passing the dot of the middle row. On 
the back is a row of small hairy elevations, one on the 
top of each segment. The head is pale brown, the spi- 
racles pale orange, and the V-shaped band around the 
tail is a purplish brown. The feet of the first three seg- 
ments are sharp claws ; the next two segments are foot- 
4 



INSECT ENEMIES. 123 

less, followed by four with very strong powers of attach- 
ment; then two more are footless. The terminal segment 
has pale brown feet. 

They feed on the oak and elm as well as the quince. 
Harris Avas mistaken in saying that the "outer covering 
of leaves which fall off in the autumn bear the enclosed 
tough oval cocoons to the ground." I have always found 
those on the quince fastened securely around the stem, 
so as to avoid the danger of falling to the ground. The 
second brood spin their cocoons in August and September, 
and these furnish the winter quarters for the chrysalids. 




Fig. 111.— LONG-TAILED OPHION. 

As soon as they are out of the cocoon the limp wings 
unfold, and they crawl to some place where they can 
hang and dry, all which takes place in an hour, when 
they can fly. 

Remedies.— At the annual pruning, such cocoons as 
have escaped previous gathering should be looked for 
and destroyed. During the summer and fall, the larvas 
maybe subdued by hand picking, the place of their loca- 
tion being found by their large droppings. Insectivorous 
birds and poultry feed on them. It is estimated that 
four out of five of the larvse of this moth are destroyed 



124 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



by its parasitic enemies. The largest, and perhaps the 
commonest, is the Long-tailed Ophion (Ophiou macru- 
rum, Linn.). It is a large yellowish brown ichneumon, 
that lays its eggs on the skin of the larvae, to which they 
adhere by the gum surrounding them, and hatch in a few 
days. A two-winged tachina fly is also often found as a 
parasite on this caterpillar. Its larva is a fleshy and foot- 
less grub, of a translucent yellow, and about half an inch 
long. 

16. Cotton Tuft (Lagoa crispata, Packard).— This is 
a very singular variety of the caterpillar family, which 

derives its name from the 
crinkled, woolly hairs on the 
fore wings of the parent 
moth. The thorax and 
lower part of the sides are a 
slate-colored, dusky orange. 
It makes its cocoon by inter- 
weaving its long hairs with 
its silk. The cocoon is long, 
cylindrical, and dense. The 
skin of the very thin pupa 
is found protruding from 
the cocoon after the moth has escaped. When I first 
saw the Lagoas on the quince trees, the caterpillars were 
about a third of an inch long and looked like so many tufts 
of white cotton. Hence the common name I have given 
it. After they had moulted, and grown to about three- 
quarters of an inch in length, they appeared less hairy, 
the back being wide in proportion to the length, with the 
corrugated parts conjoined, reminding one of a trilobite. 

17. The Apple-tree Aphis (Aphis malt, Fabr.; 
Aphis malifolice. Fitch). The name Aphis means to 
exhaust, and is well applied to this little insect, which 
proves itself a great exhauster of vitality on all trees on 
which it lives. They have small heads, armed with 




Fig. 112.— COTTON TUFT. 



a, cocoon natural size ; b, early appear- 
ance; c, advanced growth; d, ma- 
tured larvae. 



INSECT ENEMIES. 125 

three- jointed beaks, which puncture the tender foliage, 
and through which they suck out the juices of plants. 
Their eyes are round, without eyelets. Their antennae 
are long and tapering. Their legs are long and slender. 
There are but two joints to their feet. Their wings are 
nearly triangular, and the upper wings, longer than the 
body, are nearly twice as large as the lower. In repose 
these w r ings coyer the body like a steep roof. 

The most wonderful thing about them is the way they 
multiply. The males die soon after they pair in autumn. 
The females lay their eggs on the bark near the leaf buds, 
and then die. In spring, when the leaves begin to grow, 
the eggs hatch and they begin their depredations. All 




Fig. 113. — THE GKEEN APHIS. 

the young lice are wingless females. In ten or twelve 
days they attain to maturity, and by a viviparous genera- 
tion they begin to give birth to a daily increase of about 
twenty. This second generation are also wingless fe- 
males, and soon multiply by the same process as did the 
first. Thus they multiply throughout the season, with- 
out the appearance of a single male, till in autumn they 
produce a brood of both sexes, as well as the viviparous 
form already described. During the summer, some 
of the females acquire- wings, and, dispersing to other 
trees, found new colonies. They are generally wingless, 
but when winged, look like the males, with a black head, 
thorax, and antennas, black dots in a row along each 



126 QUINCE CULTURE. 

side, black nectaries and tail appendage. The neck is 
green, the body is yellowish green, striped often with 
a deeper green. The young arc almost white. The 
wings are transparent, with dark veins. 

When they become gorged with sap, the excess is 
thrown out through two little tubes, which project, one 
on each side, from the anterior part of the body. These 
are their nectaries, through which they eject a honeyed 
fluid known as honey dew. To feed on this, a variety of 
ants and flies will be found to visit them. The ants, 
with whom they live on friendly terms, stroke the 
aphides with their antennoe to induce them sooner to 
void this sweet liquid, which they hastily devour. 

Exj^eriment has shown them capable of producing 
eleven generations in seven months, when frost closed the 
opportunity. In a heated room they continued to repro- 
duce a constant succession, without the intervention of 
males, for four years. Even then there was nothing to 
show why it might not have been continued still longer. 
Dr. Burnett considers this anomalous mode of increase 
as a process of budding, and that the whole series, like 
the leaves of a tree, constitute only one generation, 
resulting from the previous union of the sexes. Reaumur 
proved one capable of increasing to six thousand millions 
in five generations. The leaves of trees infested with 
aphides soon become distorted, or curled back so as to have 
their tips touch the twig whence they sprung, thus pro- 
tecting them from the sun and rain. 

Remedies. — The eggs can be destroyed by a wash of 
caustic lime or soda. The young may be destroyed by 
alkaline solutions, and by tobacco water, made by boiling 
a pound of stems in a gallon of water. Twigs can be 
bent into it with but little waste of the solution. Small 
birds in winter hunt over the trees for its eggs, and in 
summer for the lice. The Ichneumon fly deposits her 
egg in the aphis, and this soon produces a destroyer. 



INSECT ENEMIES. 127 

The Aphis-lions and the Lace-winged flies produce larvae 
which destroy them in abundance. Myriads of aphides 
are destroyed by Lady- birds and their larvae. There are 
nearly a hundred species of Lady-birds, all of which are 
our helpers. I have found the large black ant of great 
service. They concentrate on limbs infested with lice, 
and clean them off. I count each nest of ants worth a 
dollar a year as insecticides. 

The Syrphus flies (Syrphus politics, Say) lay one egg 
in a group of plant lice, which hatches out a footless, 
eyeless, flattened, wrinkled, green and purple maggot. 
Their bodies are supple, and their mouths are provided 
with a triple-pointed dart, with which they pierce the 
aphides, and suck them dry. 

A black aphis appears some years in considerable num- 
bers on my quince cuttings, just in time to destroy open- 
ing buds. Later I have found it in large numbers on 
the young shoots of growing trees. I have not yet 
determined with certainty its position in the aphis 
family. 

18. Katy-did, the Broad-winged Katy-did (Cyr- 
tophyllus concavus, Say; Platyphyllum concavum, Harris). 
— Platypthyllum. means a broad wing, and is used to dis- 
tinguish this from the Southern Katy-did, which belongs 
to the genus Pliylloptera. It is a green grasshopper of the 
order Orthoptera, and derives its common name from the 
note of the male, which is produced by a kind of taboret. 
The triangular overlapping part of each wing-cover forms 
a strong half-oval frame, in which a thin, transparent 
membrane is stretched. The friction of the taboret 
frames against each other when the wing-covers are 
opened and shut, produces several distinct notes closely 
resembling articulate sounds, and corresponding with 
the number of times the wing-covers are opened and 
shut. In the stillness of the night these notes may be 
heard a long distance, as rival notes answer from adjacent 



128 QT'ISCE CCLTURE. 

trees, with emphatic assurance "Katy did, she did." 
These notes are continued all night. 

The body is pale green ; the wings and wing-covers are 
of a deeper shade. The legs are also green, and very 
long. The thorax is rough, marked by two slightly 
transverse furrows ; and being curved down a little on 
each side, with a slightly rounded elevation behind, 
somewhat resembles a saddle. The insect is about an 
inch and a half long, the female having a projecting 
ovipositor. The wings are shorter than the wing-covers, 
which, with their strong midrib and regular venation, 
much resemble a leaf. These large wing-covers are 
both oval and concave, and inclose the body within, 
meeting above and below at their edges like the two 
parts of a bivalve shell. The piercer of the female is 
broad, laterally compressed, and curved like a cimeter ; 
and in both sexes there are two little thorn-like projec- 
tions from the middle of the breast between the fore leers. 
The antennae are very long and slender. They attain 
maturity in September and October, when the female 
lays her eggs in two intersecting rows of eight or ten 
each, along the twig of the tree, the bark being rough- 
ened under them. The eggs are slate-brown, about one- 
eighth of an inch across, shaped much like flax-seed, and 
overla]} each other like shingles. They are gummed 
securely to the twig. They hatch in the spring. 

Remedy. — Gather the broods of eggs on the twigs at 
the annual pruning; or capture and destroy the mother 
before she deposits her eggs. They are often found on 
grapevines, both eggs and insects. 

19. The Oblong-winged Katy-did (Phylloptera 
dblongifolia, De Geer) is so similar in habits of feed- 
ing and laying its eggs as not to need any separate 
description. 

20. The Leaf-Crumpler (Phycis indigenella, Zeller). 
— The common name of this insect is a very appropriate 



INSECT ENEMIES. 



129 



one. In its larval state it draws a few leaves together, 
within which it prepares a place of abode, and in which 
it winters when about one-third grown. With opening 
spring it resumes activity, and leaves its case in search 
of food, and continues to grow till the early part of June, 
when it shuts itself up in its case, and becomes a reddish 
brown chrysalis about four-tenths of an inch long. As 
a larva it was a third longer. As a perfect moth it 
comes out in about two weeks, with wings expanded to 
seven-tenths of an inch. The body of the larva is a dull 




Fig. 114. — c, Head of Larva, magnified ; 
d, Size of the Moth. 



Fig. 115. 



THE LEAF-CRUMPLER. 



greenish brown, with a horny plate on the top of the first 
segment, and a flattened dark prominence on each side, 
below the plate. Each Of the other segments is marked by 
a number of dark dots, each giving rise to a single brown 
hair. The head is a dark reddish brown. There is only 
one brood a year, from eggs laid in July. There is a 
striking contrast between the markings of their two 
pairs of wings. The fore wings are pale brown, witli 
patches and streaks of silvery white. The hind wings 
are plain brownish white. The under side of both pairs 



130 QUINCE CULTURE. 

is paler. Besides the quince, it feeds on the apple, cherry, 
plum, and sometimes the peach leaves. 

Remedies. — Gather and destroy the cases in which 
they hibernate. A small Ichneumon fly is a parasite on 
it; and the two-winged Tachina fly (Tachina phycita, 
Le Baron), which closely resembles the common house 
fly, also preys on it. 

ATTACKING THE BUDS. 

21. The Tarnished Plant-Bug (Lygceus lineola- 
ris, P. Beauv.). — This injurious insect is about one- 
fifth of an inch long. The males 
are generally darker than the females, 
the colors in both varying from a 
dark brown to a greenish yellow 
•A-/v*> brown. The head is yellowish, with 

1 /1Sm$T\ three narrow reddish stripes. The 

beak is about one-third the length 
of the body, and is folded under it 
when not in use to puncture the 
buds, and suck out their juices. 
Fig. lie.-TARNisHED Thege pi - inctures seem to poison both 

plant-bug (Enlarged). ,_ , * _ 1 * . i 

the buds and young leaves. A whole 
branch is sometimes seen to wither and die from their 
injuries. The thorax has a yellow margin, with several 
yellowish lines running lengthwise. Behind the thorax 
is a yellow V-like mark, rather indistinct. The legs are 
yellow and the wings dusky brown. When handled they 
emit a disagreeable odor. They do their mischief in 
about three weeks. They lay their eggs on the leaves. 
The young bugs are wingless, and of a green color. 
Otherwise they resemble their parents. They are in- 
jurious to the quince, pear, apple, plum, cherry, etc. 

Remedies. — They are sluggish, early in the morning, 
and may then be shaken off and destroyed. 




INSECT ENEMIES. 131 

ATTACKING THE FLOWERS. 

22. The Pear-tree Blister Beetle (Po?nphopcea 
cenia, Say). This beetle is a little over half an inch 
long, with head and thorax punctated, and a little 
hairy. The roughened wing cases are marked with 
two slightly elevated lines. The color is a greenish 
blue. They eat the entire flower except the stamens. 
They sometimes eat the tender leaves at the end of the 
limbs. Besides the quince, they eat the blossoms of 
the plum, cherry, etc. 

The remedy is to jar them down early in the morning, 
and destroy them before the sun warms them to activity. 

23. A Beetle just about the size of the asparagus beetle, 






Fi£- 117. Fig. 118. 

PEAR-TREE BLISTER BEETLE. CHRTSOMELIAKS. 

but with yellow-striped wing-covers like the cucumber 
beetle, is a Chrysomelian that sometimes riddles the petals 
of the quince. It eats the buds before the petals have ex- 
panded. They feed singly or in groups, and when dis- ' 
tnrbed, hastily fly away. I first found them on the ' 
quince in the spring of 1887. 

ATTACKING THE FRUIT. 

24. The Curculio (Conotrachelus Cratcegi, Walsh). 
— This beetle is an indigenous insect. Its home is 
the wild haw, from^which it has come to be very 
injurious to the quince. It is a little larger than the 
plum curculio. The color is ash-gray, mottled with 
ochre-yellow. It has a dusky, almost triangular spot at 



132 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



the base of the thorax above. The wing-covers have 
seven narrow longitudinal elevations, with two rows of 
dots between them. Its piercer is folded under the 
thorax when not in use. It feeds on the quince both in 
the larva and imago, burying itself entirely in the fruit. 
Occasionally it attacks the pear. 

In May the beetles come from the chrysalids, pair, and 
commence laying their eggs in June. In piercing the 

fruit they make a cylindrical hole 
a little larger than the egg, and 
enlarged at the base. In this 
the egg is laid, and hatches in 
a few days. The larva burrows 
through the growing fruit near 
the surface, seldom penetrating to 
the core. At maturity it leaves 
the fruit through a cylindrical 
opening, after which it buries itself in the earth two 
or three inches deep, and remains unchanged till the 
following May, when it pupates and becomes a beetle. 
Remedies. — Jarring the beetles off the trees on sheets 
and killing them, if thoroughly done, will prove effective. 
Gathering and destroying the fruit that falls, or that 
which does not fall if it has been stung, will be helpful in 
destroying them. 

There are several caterpillars besides those named that 
prey on the leaves of the quince, which we have not yet 
been able to name with certainty. One is a large and 
nearly black caterpillar ; and another is small, and mot- 
tled like some of the span worms. 




Fig. 119.— QUINCE CURCULIO 
(.Greatly Enlarged). 



BIRDS — TOADS — RABBITS — MICE. .133 

CHAPTER XX. 
BIRDS—TOADS— BABBITS— MICE. 

Birds. — Much might be said of the value of 'poultry 
in the orchard to destroy insect enemies. Insectivorous 
birds are also valuable allies for the horticulturist ; but; 
in merit our domestic fowls outrank them all. It is ad-, 
vantageous to raise fruit and fowls together. It will be 
to the advantage of both if the fowls are in number pro- 
portionate to their field of operation. 

Poultry are supposed to omit from their bill of fare 
some of our insect friends, and it is probable the birds do 
likewise ; but all insects are devoured by the toad, which 
will clear your room of cockroaches over night, just as 
he will your gardens of the vilest of your insect foes. I 
find a movable fence, in sections that can be put to- 
gether whenever it is wanted, a very convenient thing 
for poultry. It may be made of lath nailed on scantling. 
Others are using netting of wire cloth, and find it satis- 
factory. It is to be hoped that the laws protecting in- 
sectivorous birds will be generally respected, and that 
our song birds will be left to multiply in our orchards 
and gardens. The English sparrow is an enemy to be 
destroyed, for doing more harm than good. 

Rodents. — There are two rodents that deserve notice 
as enemies of the quince, apple, and pear. 

1. The Hare or Gray Rabbit (Lepus sylvaticus). 
— The hare, or rabbit, as it is commonly called, injures 
young trees by cutting off the tops and by gnawing the 
bark from those too large to eat off. This is often a very 
serious damage in both the nursery and the orchard. 
They multiply rapidly, and sometimes become formidable. 

Remedies. — They are easily caught in traps and snares. 
They may also be poisoned by strychnine, a small portion 
being placed on pieces of carrot, of which they are very 



134 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



fond. The bark may be protected by smearing it with 
blood, or rubbing it with liver, or smearing it with 
tobacco water, or lime water, with enough copperas 
added to turn it green. A little cheap glue will make 
the wasli stick to the bark. Thick paper around a tree 
will keep them from gnawing the bark. Charles Down- 
ing recommends a paint made of a handful of flowers of 
sulphur, half a spadeful of soot, a spadeful of fresh cow 
dung, with a spadeful of hot slacked lime, applied on a 
dry day. He says Englisli gardeners set up swabs dipped 
in melted sulphur among the trees in their nurseries. 
2. Meadow Mice (Mus arvicolce). — Meadow mice are 




Fig. 120. 



Fig. 121. 

SAVING GIRDLED TREES. 



Fig. 122. 



known by various names in different parts of the country, 
such as short-tailed field mice, ground mice, etc., and 
are sometimes called moles, although they are very dif- 
ferent from them. They are covered with long gray 
hair, have very thick heads, and very short tails. They 
all burrow in the ground. The greatest damage done by 
meadow mice is gnawing off the bark of fruit trees. 
They do this most when the ground is covered with 
snow. Like the rabbit, they multiply rapidly. Their 
hiding places may be found in brush heaps, under stacks 
of grain and hay, and similar places. 

Remedies. — Burn the brush heaps. Set the rails up on 
end so as not to make a shelter for the mice, and keep 



USES OE THE QUINCE. 135 

cats or a dog to hunt them. Hawks catch them by day 
and owls by night. Skunks, foxes, etc., also help to 
lessen their numbers. But, after all, they will multiply 
rapidly if grass and weeds are left in the orchard. The 
rabbit remedies will also answer for mice. 

Girdled trees may sometimes be saved, if the injury is 
discovered before the wounds get dry, by banking the 
tree with moist earth. A more certain way is by insert- 
ing a row of cions around the girdled place, either by 
halving them and inserting the ends under the bark 
above and below, or by using strips of bark for the same 
purpose. The edges of the bark should be cut smooth 
and even to insure success. In either case they should 
be well protected by grafting wax. 



CHAPTER XXL 
MEDICINAL AND ECONOMIC USES OF THE QUINCE. 

Bveey part of the quince is useful. Its scarcity and 
consequent high price have kept it in the good house- 
keeper's list of luxuries. But when its cultivation be- 
comes more general, it will come within the reach of all, 
and be in still greater demand. 

In the first century of the Christian era the old Roman 
Columella said: " Quinces not only yield pleasure, but 
health." A modern writer of note says : " Medicinally, 
the quince is cooling and strengthening. The juice 
is good against nausea. The ripe fruit eaten raw is 
said to be good for spitting of blood ; also for swollen 
spleen, dropsy, and difficult breathing." 

" The quince in the Materia Medica," according to 
Lewis and Woodville, "is astringent and stomachic. 
The juice in nausea is to be given in doses of a spoonful 
or two; so in vomitings, inodorous eructations, and some 
kinds of alvine fluxes, In the London Pharmacy this juice 



130 QUINCE CULTURE. 

was formerly ordered to be made into a syrup called Syrup- 
us Cydonareun. or syrup of quinces * and was prepared 
by digesting three pints of the depurated juice with a 
drachm of cinnamon, half a drachm of ginger, with half 
a drachm of cloves, on warm ashes for six hours, and then 
adding a pint of red port and dissolving in the strained 
liquor nine pounds of sugar. But the only preparation 
of the quince it now directs is a mucilage of the seeds, 
made by boiling a drachm of these in eight ounces of 
water till it acquires a proper consistence. This has 
been recommended in apthous affections and excoriations 
of the mouth and fauces. It may be more pleasant, but 
less efficacious than that of the simple quince." In 1831 
Henry Phillips reported the cure of a severe case of 
asthma at Horsham, in Sussex, England, by using quince 
wine. 

1. Quince Wine is made of equal parts of quince juice 
and water, with three and a quarter pounds of sugar to 
the gallon, added before it is fermented. The seeds are 
taken out before the fruit is crushed or grated. If the 
water is omitted, the medicinal value will be greatly 
increased. 

2. Quince Syrup, made by boiling the richness out of 
the fruit, and dissolving, in the water used, sugar enough 
to give it a good heavy body, will be found delicious for 
the soda fountain. Without the soda it is a pleasant 
summer drink in water. 

3. Quince Water, made by pouring hot water over the 
dried fruit, and letting it steep awhile, is a good substi- 
tute for tamarind water. It is most acceptable to in- 
valids desiring a cooling acid drink. 

4. Bandoline is made by covering the seeds with forty 
to fifty times their bulk of warm water, which soon pro- 
duces a mucilage used by perfumers and hair dressers. 
Many ladies prepare it for themselves to keep their hair 
in place. It can be perfumed with any kind of odor. 



USES OF THE QUINCE. 137 

By the addition of a little alcohol it can be kept for a 
long time. It is this use of the seeds which causes the 
great demand with druggists. 

5. Quince Preserves are made by first cooking the 
fruit soft, and then adding as many pounds of pure sugar 
as there were pounds of the raw fruit, and simply scalding 
it through thoroughly. The importance of not adding the 
sugar to acid fruits till after they are cooked soft has not 
been sufficiently understood. It is estimated to require 
double the sugar if it is put into the fruit at first ; be- 
cause the conversion of the cane sugar into glucose or 
grape sugar lessens its sweetening power very greatly; 
some say more than one-half. 

The receipts in the cook books give directions for a 
long and tedious process to do what is so short and 
simple by this method. To prevent mould on jars of 
preserves or jellies, they should be kept in a cool place 
and covered closely from the air. A thin paper covering, 
wet with alcohol or lard, and gently pressed on the sweet- 
meat, is a safeguard ; or cover with a thin film of lard 
without the paper. Melted paraffine poured over the 
confections serves the same purpose, and is very easily 
removed when they are used. 

6. Quince Marmalade is made by cooking the fruit 
soft, crushing to a pulp, and adding sugar to taste. Boil 
slowly, stirring constantly to prevent sticking or burning. 
When it falls off a spoon like jelly, it is done, and can be 
molded in cups and covered the same as jelly. One- 
third sweet apples maybe added without more sugar, and 
still the flavor will be sufficient to suit many tastes. 

7. Quince Butter is made much like the marmalade, 
except the addition of sugar. This is a favorite fruit 
confection in the Philadelphia market. 

8. Quince Compote. — Pare a dozen quinces, cut them 
in halves, and take out the cores. Put in a preserving 
vessel enough clear syrup to cover them, and add the 



138 QUINCE CULTURE. 

juice of two lemons. Heat the syrup, and add the 
quinces; boiling well together. Drain the fruit, and pack 
it in a compotier. Leave the syrup to thicken a little, 
and pour it over the quince. 

9. Quince Sauce is made by simply stewing the fruit 
soft, then mashing and adding sugar to taste. The ad- 
dition of one half apples or pears will greatly increase 
the quantity and yet leave a good quince flavor. 

10. Quinces Canned, or bottled as sauce, are as suc- 
cessfully put up as any other fruit for similar use, only 
remember to cook soft before adding the sugar, as, be- 
sides the sweetening, there will be a toughening of the 
fruit. I canned a large quantity in glass jars (the Light- 
ning can preferred), first packing them full of the raw 
fruit, then filling with water, and boiling till soft in a 
common wash boiler on my cook stove. The safety of 
the jars was secured by a very thin skeleton frame of 
wood on the bottom of the boiler. After the fruit was 
soft, the jars Avere lifted out, and the water poured off, 
and half a pound of dissolved granulated sugar added for 
each quart jar. This made a rich, heavy syrup, which 
was returned to the fruit in the jar. Keplacing the jars 
in the boiler, they were soon boiling again, wdien they 
were ready to seal. Lastly, they were inverted, and left 
so till cooled. By this last process it was easy to discover 
if the jar and sealing were perfect; if not, bubbles of air 
would press in and show at once on the surface. 

11. Baked Quinces are a favorite with some. Wash 
and core, then fill with sugar, and bake in a dish or pan con- 
taining a little water, to eat hot or cold with cream and 
sugar. Or, having cut in halves, without paring or cor- 
ing, boil till nearly tender, and then, covered with sugar, 
bake in a hot oven, basting often with the syrup made 
by the sugar and water in which they were boiled. When 
done put a lump of butter on each half. Turn the syrup 
over them, and serve as before. 



USES OF THE QUINCE. 139 

12. Sweet Pickles. — Prepare as for preserves. Cook 
tender in water, drain well, and simmer for five minutes 
in a syrup of good vinegar, covering the fruit, and add 
sugar, one and a half pounds to a pound of quinces, with 
spices of cinnamon, allspice, mace, and cloves to suit one's 
taste. The water in which they were boiled can be used 
to make jelly. A pint of vinegar to seven pounds of fruit 
is a good proportion for sweet pickles to keep well. 

13. Quince Jelly, when well made, is unsurpassed. 
Most housekeepers use the parings and cores of such as 
have been used for some other confection. It is better to 
leave out the cores, as the mucilage around the seeds may 
make the syrup ropy, and hinder success. The skin, 
with what adheres, contains the part of fruit richest in 
pectine, and so is best for jelly. Indifferent fruit should 
be cooked with the skins for jelly. Apples may be used 
to increase the quantity of jelly without seriously reduc- 
ing the flavor. Cook the apples, and then the quinces 
in the same water. The color of all jellies may be kept 
light by shortening the time of boiling ; and this may be 
done by dividing the fruit into three or four parts, cook- 
ing them successively in the same water. By the time 
the last is cooked, and the pulp pressed and syrup strained, 
the sugar can be added ; by measure rather than w r eight, 
bulk for bulk. When the sugar is added to the syrup a 
scum will rise, and should be removed. No more skimming 
is necessary till it is done, when another skimming will 
leave it entirely clear. The exact jellying point in the 
process must be determined by trial as the boiling pro- 
ceeds. Longer toiling may reduce it to a syrup again. 
As soon as the jelly is done, let the heat subside a little, 
and pour into cups to mold it for use ; and in a few 
minutes after, run a spoon around the top of the cups 
to gather the film, when each will be perfectly smooth 
and glassy. Preserve from mould as above described for 
preserves. 



INDEX. 



Adjustable Marker 45 

Age of Quince Trees 50 

. Igrotidee . - - 102 

j i(/ro(is dandestina - 10-4 

Cochranii ..103 

sauria 102 

scanderw 104 

Aid from others... 10 

Aim of Author in Writing 12 

A llorh in a niticla 89 

Angers Quince 21 

Ants, Black 127 

Red ...105 

Aphelinus mali 101 

Aphides 100, 124, 127 

Aphis lanigera .100 

lions 127 

mali 124 

malifolice 125 

schizoneura 100 

Woolly .-100 

Apple-tree Aphis 125 

tree Borer,Round-headed .97,98 

or Orange Quince 22 

A rcfiiu/s 109 

Ashes 18,86 

Aspidiotns Cydonia 100 

Altacus Polyjrfiemus 119 

Average yield of Meech's Pro- 
lific Quince 81 

Bacteria 82, 85 

Bag- w orm 110 

Baked Quinces 138 

Bandoline - -136 

Bark-bound 94 

Basket for Shipping 79 

Basket-worm 110 

Beetles 106 

Birds, Value of 133 

Bending down Branches 75 

Bleeding from Pruning. 74 

Blennocampa 116 

Blight, Description 83 

Leaf 93 

Preventive -- 95 

Recovery 85 

Spread 84 

Blossoms 75, 76 

Which will Bear ? 77 

Borer, Apple-tree 97 

Round-headed 97 

Remedies - - 99 

When to look for... 98 

Budding 62 

Buds, Flower 69 

(140) 



Buds, Latent 17 

Leaf 09 

Threefold 18 

Butter, Quince 137 

Calosoma calidum - 106 

sci*utator 106 

Caterpillar of Handmaid Moth. 106 
Yellow-necked Apple-tree . . 106 

Cellular Tissue 18 

Chalcid Fly -101 

Champion Quince 24 

Chinese Quince..- 22 

Chrysomelians . . 131 

Cicada seplendccim 101 

Conotrachclus Crakegi 131 

Compote of Quince 137 

Corn Emperor Moth 112 

Cotton Tuft 124 

Crate - 80 

Crops, average yield, value, etc. 81 

Cryptus inquisitor 112 

Cultivation 42,43 

Curculio 131 

Cuttings, length and how to 

plant 02 

Cutting back 50 

Cut-worms, Climbing 102, 104 

Dark-sided 103 

Mamestra Picta 104 

Variegated 102 

W-marked 104 

Remedies for 105 

Cyrtophyllus concavus 127 

Datana minislra 106 

De Bourgeaut Quince 25 

Decay, Occasion of 73 

Digging the Tree 47, 48 

Diseases 82, 92 

Bacteria 82 

Bark-bound 94 

Blight 83, 86 

Fungi 82 

LeafBliffht - 93 

Leaf Mildew 92 

Orange Rust 86, 90 

Quince Leaf Brownness 90 

Quince Rot 93 

Yellow Leaf Spots 91 

Drainage 42 

Dropping of Fruit; why? 72 

Drop-worm 110 

Encyrtus 119 

Equalizing the Growth 71 

Eriosoma 100 

Evaporation from Soil 42, 43 



INDEX. 



141 



Excess of Wood 72 

Fall Web-worm 108, 110 

Fertilizers, Artificial 36, 40 

Liquid Manure. 70 

Lime. 70 

Salt 37 

Flowers 19 

Fontenay Quince.. 25 

Fruit 80 

Keeping. 80 

Marketing ..80 

Thinning .70, 78 

Wax-like Covering of 86, 94 

Fruitful Branches, Which are ?. 72 

Fuller Quince. 25 

Fungi 82 

Gathering Fruit too early 80 

and marketing 79, 81 

Girdled Trees saved 135 

Good Pruning; illustrated 72 

Grafting, Cleft 60 

Crown 61 

for early Fruitf ulness 75 

Saddle.. 61 

Side 61 

Splice or Whip.. _ 61 

Time of.. 60 

Gray Rabbit 133 

Grain or Grass, Do not plant in. 51 

Hare, The 133 

Healing Wounds 73, 74 

Heeling in, Sloping and Erect _. 51 

Hendersonia Cydonia 91 

Hemiteles Lhyridopteryx . . 112 

Hide-bound..^ 94 

History of Quince 13-16 

Hyphantria textor. .108, 109 

Hyperchiria Io 112 

varia 112 

Ichneumons 105, 106 

Insect Enemies 97,131 

Aphides (for var. see 

aphides) 101, 124, 127 

Apple-tree Borer, Round- 
headed 97,98 

Bag, Basket or Drop-worm .110 
Caterpillar of Handmaid 

Moth 108,110 

Cotton Tuft 124 

Chrysomelians 131 

Corn Emperor Moth 112 

Curculio 131 

Cut-worms. 102, 105 

Fall Web-worm 108, 110 

Katy-did . .127, 128 

Leaf Crumpler 128 

Locust 101 

Pear-tree Blister Beetle 131 

Slug 116 



Insect Enemies — Polyphemus 

Moth 119,123 

Quince Scale 100 

Spined Soldier-bug 110 

Tarnished Plant-bug 130 

Vaporer Moth 115 

White - marked Tussock 

Moth 115 

Yellow-necked Apple-tree 

Moth .108-110 

Insect friends 106, 130 

Allorhina nitida . 89 

Aphis-lions 127 

Calosoma scrutator 106 

calidum 106 

Chalcid Fly 101 

Gryptus inquisitor ..112 

Dung Beetle.. 89 

Encyrtus . .119 

Hermiteles thyridopteryx 112 

Ichneumons 105, 106, 112 

Lace- winded Flies 1 27 

Lady-bugs 127 

Long-tailed Ophion 115 

Red Ants 105 

Syrphus Flies 127 

Tachina Flies 106,108 

Tachina phycike 130 

Japanese Quince. 27 

Jelly, Quince 139 

Katy-did, Broad- winged 127 

Oblong-winged. .128 

Keeping a Record.. 54 

Keeping Fruit 80 

Knowledge necessary to Suc- 
cess 9 

Lace- winged Flies 127 

Lady-birds ...127 

Lagoa crispata 124 

Largest Quince Tree on Record. 50 

Layering 56, 57 

Laying out the Orchard 45, 47 

Leaf Blight 93 

Leaf Crumpler 128 

Leaf Mildew 92 

Leaves 18 

Lenticelles... 17, 29 

Lepus sylvaticus 133 

Life force 19 

Lime .70,86 

Lindlcy's Law for Leaf and 

Flower-buds 69 

Liquid Manure 70 

Locating Board 47 

Locust, Seventeen-Year . .101 

Long-tailed Ophion _". .115 

Lygceus lineolaris 130 

Mamestra Piaa 104 

Manual needed 9 



142 



QUINCE CULTURE. 



Manuring- .' -36, 40 

Common Sources of- - 39 

Chemical 40 

Necessity of 30 

Marketing HO 

Marmalade .-137 

Meadow Mice 134 

Medical Uses of the Quince 135 

Meech's Prolific Quince 27 

M ice, Meadow : . 134 

.Mildew 92 

Missouri Mammoth Quince 29 

Mqrth kra Mexpili . . 90, 91 

Moults of Caterpillars .107 

Mound Layers.- 57 

Mulching 47 

Mas arvicolcB 134 

Musk or Pineapple Quince 30 

New Upright Quince 25 

Nitrogen, Sources of 39 

Ophion, Long-tailed 115 

Ophion macrurum 1 15, 124 

Orange or Apple Quince 22 

Orange Rust. 80 

Orchard, Laying out the 43, 47 

Orgyia leucostigma 115, 1 16 

Overbearing 77 

Parasites 108 

Pear Quince 31 

Pear-tree Blister Beetle 131 

Slug 116 

Phycis indiginella 128 

Ph //U opt era oblonaifolia 128 

Pickles, Sweet..' 139 

Pinching in 71 

Pineapple Quince 30 

Planting 45, 47 

Distance apart 49 

Platyphyllum concavus 127 

] odisus spinosus 110 

Podosphtera Indactyla 92 

Polyphemus Moth 119 

Puwphoptea (enia . 1 31 

Portugal Quince 31 

Poultry, Aid of 133 

Price of Quinces 81 

Principles to be Understood 12 

Profits 81 

Promoting Fruitfulness with- 
out Pruning 74, 75 

Propagation 57, 62 

By budding 62 

cuttings 57, 59 

grafting . 59 

layering 57 

root grafting - 58 

root cuttings 59 

seeds 55 

6prouts 57 



Propagation — 

By stool layers 57 

Best Time to Layer 57 

Formation of Callus 57 

How to plant Cuttings 59 

Keeping Buds dormant ... 8 

Lengthof Cuttings 57 

On what to Graft. 59 

Preparing for Planting ..58, 59 

Time to Plant 59 

Pruning at Transplanting 63 

for Form 65 

Fruitfulness 68 

Good Pruning illustrated. 72 

Healing Wouuds 73, 74 

Pruning Limbs 71 

Root Pruning 69 

to promote Growth (57 

When to prune Limbs 71 

Roots 70 

withSaw 75 

Shears 74 

Quinces among the Greeks 13 

among the Romans ... 13 

in America 16 

Botany 13 

Etymology 13 

France 16 

Italy 15 

Persia.. 15 

Tradition 13 

Parts of Tree 17 

Curculio 131 

8cale 100 

Rot 93 

Tress, Ornamental 11 

Rabbit, The Gray 133 

R( est ilia aurantiaca 86, 89 

Rea's Mammoth Quince 32 

Recipes 136, 139 

Quinces, Baked 138 

Quince Bandoline .136 

Butter 137 

Canned 138 

Compote 137 

Jelly 139 

Marmalade 137 

Preserves 137 

Sauce. 138 

Sweet Pickles 139 

Syrup. 136 

Water 136 

Wine 136 

Red Ants .105 

Remedies for Aphides.101, 120, 127 
Bag, Basket, or Drop-worm. 112 

Borers. 99 

Caterpillar of Handmaid 
Moth 108 



INDEX. 



143 



Remedies for Emperor Moth ...114 

Curculio 132 

Cut-worms 105 

Fall Web-worm 108 

. Katy-dids 128 

Leaf Crumpler 130 

Lice 1:34 

Pear-tree Blister Beetle 131 

Pear-tree Slug 118,119 

Polyphemus Moth . . 123 

Rabbits 133 

Scale 100 

Spined Soldier-bug 110 

Tarnished Plant-bug 130 

Vaporer or White Tussock 

Moth 116 

Restoring Withered Trees 51 

Ringing Branches for early 

Fruit 75 

Rodents _.. 133 

Roots ...17,48 

Tap 17 

Lateral 17 

Root Cuttings 59 

Grafting 58 

Pruning, how, when 69 

Rot . 93 

Round-headed Apple-tree Borer 97 

Sack-trager 1 110 

Salt as a Fertilizer 37 

Saperda bivittata 97 

Candida 97 

Satumia Io... 112 

Sauce, Quince 138 

Seeds . 55 

Selandria Cerasi 116 

Shears better than Knife 74 

Soils 33,35 

Draining .. 35 

Effect on Quality of Fruit. 35 

How kept Moist 35 

How Selected 34 

Kinds 33 

Sphceropsis Cydon ice 93 

Spined Soldier-bug. __ . 110 

Sprouts from Stumps 157 

Step-ladder 79 

Stipules 18 

Stool Layers 57 

Straightening Trees 55 

Suber Cells 94 

Sweet Pickles ....139 

Sweet Quince 32 



Syrphus Flies... ..127 

Syrphus politics 127 

Syrup, Quince 136 

Tachina Flies 105,108 

Tachina phyciice 130 

Tarnished Plant-bug 130 

Telea Polyphemics 119 

Thinning Fruit, when, which 

70.77, 78 
Thyridopleryx ephemerceformis . _110 

Tiger Moths 109 

Toads 133 

Trenching . . 41 

Transpl anting 47, 49, 70 

to bring into Bearing 70 

Care in Planting . . 50 

Cutting Back.l 50 

Keeping a Record 54 

Preparing Ground 50 

Size for Transplanting 50 

Time ....52, 54 

Unfavorable Weather 75, 76 

Vaporer Moth 115 

Varieties 20,32 

Angers 21 

Apple or Orange 22 

Cnampion 24 

Chinese 25 

De Bourgeaut 25 

Fontenay or New Upright. 25 

Fuller 25 

Japanese 27 

Meech's Prolific 27 

Missouri Mammoth 29 

Musk or Pineapple 30 

Pear 31 

Portugal 31 

Rea's Mammoth 32 

Sweet Quince 32' 

What Constitutes a Variety 20 

Seedlings Numerous 21 

When to sell Quinces 80 . 

White-marked Tussock Moth. .115 

Winds, Effect of 54 

Wine 136 

Winter-killing, Causes, Protec- 

tection against 95, 96 

Wood 18 

Woolly Aphis 100, 101 

Wounds from Pruning-. 73, 74 

Yellow Leaf-spots 91 

Yellow-necked Apple-tree Cat- 
erpillar 106 



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